this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2026
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Canadian engineer here. Although we use the metric system in principle, in reality we use feet and inches for everything. There are lots of benefits to using base 12 for measurements.
The number 12 has six factors, which are 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 12. It is the smallest number to have six factors, the largest number to have at least half of the numbers below it as divisors, and is only slightly larger than 10. (The numbers 18 and 20 also have six factors but are much larger.) Ten, in contrast, only has four factors, which are 1, 2, 5, and 10.
I get the Europeans hate it though because only the people who live near Chernobyl can count to 12 on their fingers.
The thing is, we just use whole numbers. If you get under 1, then you move down by one SI prefix et voilà, you have whole numbers again
I've never thought of counting on fingers as a good reason for using it for units. But since our numeric system is base 10 (likely because of having 10 fingers indeed), it's easier to have our unit systems as base 10 too. If we all learned to think in base 12 from ground up, having base 12 units would make a lot more sense too
The thing is that outside of North America people aren't terrified to death of decimals. We actually use them and find the process simple. So those factors of yours are completely irrelevant to us.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duodecimal
Sounds like your terrified of duodecimals. Base 12 number systems are better at somethings than base 10 and a number of mathematicians believe it's a superior number system all round and easier to teach to young people. And metric would work equally well in theory with either base 10 or base 12.
Btw you can count to 12 on your fingers with one hand. Starting from the end of the index finger tap each segment of the "remaining" four fingers with your thumb.
I heard someone claim that's how Babylonians invented and used the base 12 system in the first place.
12 is better than 10, I'll give you that. But 100 is better than 144, and 1000 is way better than 1728.
And that doesn't even get to 0.1 versus 1/12, or 0.01 versus 1/144.
So 12 might be a better standalone number, but it's a terrible base to work in.
But 144 is better than 100, for the exact same reason that 12 is better than 10?
There's a reason measured angles go to 360ths, then subdivided by 60 or even by 60 again.
100 is as terrible a base as 10, and you run into it all the time if you're designing something in metric; you can't divide by 3 evenly.
I know it'll never happen but I'm still camp duodecimal, all the way.
If you look at your hand when it is wide open and palm up you can use the tip of your thumb to touch any of the 12 (four fingers each with three) sections of your fingers. Counting in 12 might be very intuitive for early humans - or might not. Who knows.
Sure, but does my 5/32" drill hit go left or right of the 7/64" on my drill bit sorting block?...
5/32 is 10/64, maybe you can figure it out from there.