[E. Pluribus Unum]

Where do you suppose we got our base-12 system?

What base 12 system?

And how well-developed could their civilization have been when they didn't know about wheels?

We are talking about their mathematical counting system.

You must have a mighty large inferiority complex to want to turn that into passing judgement on a civilization that died out hundreds of years ago.

[George from New England]

12 inches = 1 foot
12 times 12 = 1 gross

[Don Joe]

What base 12 system?

They unearthed an Incan PDP-8. :)

(Yes, yes, I'm taking certain artistic liberties. Hey, it's a joke, man, a joke.)

[Cronos]

Yeah, that base 12 got me too. We use the base 10, decimal system because that's the basis for the Indian numerals we use (1,2,3,4...) and it seems easier to us. The Binary system (base 2) is used for computers as they were based on switches which had only two options ON and OFF (1 and 0). The Sumerians and Babylonians used a base 12 system I think because they're the ones who divided a circle into 360 degrees and the year into 360 days. Our concept of time is based on the Sumerian (pretty old huh?) so we have 12*2 hours a day, each hour made of 12*5 minutes, each minute made up of 12*5 seconds. beyond that it's all decimal....

[Cronos]

oh and there's also the base 8 and 16 (octal and hexadecimal) systems which are related to the binary.