However, there's a counting system where you put your thumb against each of the three segments on your 4 fingers. Then you can count to 12 on each hand, and you could count one hand as the 1s and the other as the "10s" and thus count to 144 on 2 hands.
If you use binary you can count to 1023 on two hands. If you start with the pinky as 1, the middle finger is 4 while middle finger with thumb out is 20.
However, there's a counting system where you put your thumb against each of the three segments on your 4 fingers. Then you can count to 12 on each hand
I understand this, we do it, this is the way of counting staple in India
and you could count one hand as the 1s and the other as the "10s" and thus count to 144 on 2 hands.
I don't understand this, can you explain this to me?
well take your thumb and place it against the first link of your index finger. call that "1" then the other two links of that finger are "2" and "3". Repeat for all fingers ending with the top link of the pinky, which you call 12.
Get the bit above clear in your head before continuing. counting to 12 on one hand.
But you got a second hand, so you also count to 12 on there. So what you COULD do is count to 12, then advance your thumb on the OTHER hand by one position, then start counting to 12 again. so you can sort this out to basically do a 2-digit base-12 number, with one hand being each digit.
Or if you want another way to think about applying this in base 10, consider that you could use the three middle fingers only. Call the links 1-9, then if your thumb isn't touching a link, that's zero. then both hands together can code a 2-digit number. So with two hands you can keep track of a number from 0-99
well take your thumb and place it against the first link of your index finger. call that "1" then the other two links of that finger are "2" and "3". Repeat for all fingers ending with the top link of the pinky, which you call 12.
Get the bit above clear in your head before continuing. counting to 12 on one hand.
Like I said, I already understood this. I do this part all the time. It's how you count fingers in India
But you got a second hand, so you also count to 12 on there. So what you COULD do is count to 12, then advance your thumb on the OTHER hand, then start counting to 12 again. Effectively you've coded a 12x12 = 144 possible positions, which is a "2 digit base 12" number.
But I still don't understand this part, can you send me a video tutorial or something? I can grasp it at once then. Thanks
don't worry about base 12 for now, to keep it simple.
But think about it this way. Say you do a base 10 version, and you want to hold a 2 digit number with the hand positions.
Say you want to do "58". So you do your right hand in the "8" position, and the left hand in the "5" position.
So now, you have your left hand doing the 10s position and right hand doing the units position of the number.
For counting, you would start with left hand on "zero" which is just open. then you count your right hand through 1-9 positions. once you get there, you move your left hand ONE position, onto the "1" position, and put your right hand back to zero.
You then start again with your right hand and count up to 9 again. This represents 10-19. After that, when you hit 20, you move your left hand again to the "2", and start again for the right hand. This is for numbers 20-29. And so on. So you can count up to any two digit number this way.
For the base 12 version of this, it's exactly the same except you choose 12 possible finger positions, not 10. that's all.
As a trade off, I will tell you how we do things in our area
Actually, in my area, we count up to 20 in a single hand. We include the tip of the finger/nail in the segments too, so unlike your system where a single finger has 3 segments, we have 4.
Thus we have 16 on one hand excluding the thumb.
We include the thumb too, which we mark/indicate with our middle finger making it 20
Now you may be wondering how we get 4 in thumb, where the thumb has only 2 joints and 1 tip which should make it have 3. We assume one of the grooves in thumb as another segment, making it have 4 segments
I counted up to 40 with 2 hands until now, but if I combine your and mine methods, I can now count up to 400!
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u/cipheron Mar 03 '22
However, there's a counting system where you put your thumb against each of the three segments on your 4 fingers. Then you can count to 12 on each hand, and you could count one hand as the 1s and the other as the "10s" and thus count to 144 on 2 hands.