That’s not how radiation exposure works. The types of mutations in DNA it causes is generally things like cancer, not birth defects that transfer into future generations. In order for the number of fingers human-wide to change, there would need to be a specific mutation for that, and that mutation would have to be beneficial enough that the 11+ or 9- fingered folks would be more likely to breed than us 10 fingered folks.
On top of that, while base 10 is convenient because of our fingers, it’s unlikely to change due to how ingrained it is in our culture at this point. It’s also hardly the only system we’ve used. The Babylonians used a base 60. Many cultures have used base 12. Base 12 is actually very convenient for our fingers already.
Hold your left thumb against the first segment of your left pinky and count 1, move up one segment, count two. Count each of the segments on your left fingers. You’re now at 12. Move your right thumb to the first segment on your right pinky, and then start over on your left. Each time you count 12 on the left, move your right thumb up one. You can now count to 144 on your fingers.
Hold your left thumb against the first segment of your left pinky and count 1, move up one segment, count two. Count each of the segments on your left fingers. You’re now at 12. Move your right thumb to the first segment on your right pinky, and then start over on your left. Each time you count 12 on the left, move your right thumb up one. You can now count to 144 on your fingers.
(Note, this is not directly related to the base 12 conversation, I just like to share this method of counting whenever I can.)
I like your method a lot, it’s easier than binary with the fingers (which can get you to 1023 with both hands). But it is more work to understand for a base 10 brain than my current method:
One, two, three, four on your fingers of your right hand as usual, then drop all fingers and add the thumb for five. Then six, seven, eight, nine with the fingers.
Then drop all fingers and thumb, and add a finger on the other hand. That’s ten. Continue. You can get to 99 and very rapidly comprehend the value without any real work. Thumbs are 5s, fingers are 1s, one hand is the 1s column and the other hand is the 10s column.
I like your method! I’m curious how to do binary? I only know the method I talked about because I really, really like base 12 for a story I wrote and got very into it with the research. I’ve never considered other techniques for finger counting before.
Binary is easy to count, but a pain to decipher unless you know binary very well.
Each finger and thumb is a single digit (literally!) and can either be a 0 or a 1. I start with the thumb on my right hand, but you can start however you’d like.
Thumb up for 1
Thumb down and index finger up for 10, which is 2 in base 10.
Index and thumb up for 11 (3)
Middle finger up, index and thumb down for 100 (4)
Middle and thumb up, index down for 101 (5)
Middle and index up, thumb down, for 110 (6)
All three up for 111 (7)
Ring finger up and all others down for 1000 (8)
Etc.
All ten up, 1111111111, is 1023.
If you need to count a large quantity but don’t need to be able to quickly decipher it, this is useful! But I almost never use it in favor of the easily-understood 0-99 counting.
Wow! That’s really cool!
Reading the title is giving me a stroke… Wat?
An increased exposure to radiation something brings one extra fingers, toes, limbs, etc, and since base-10 was useful due to the number of fingers we used to have, which was 10. However, at a certain point of time, the number of people who have 10 fingers will decrease, due to increased exposure to radiation, which might lead to the base-10 system being changed.
bruh… I really hope you’re just a kid with a vivid phantasy.
Why would we change it though? We’d need to change way too much in order to do that. Just because the system started with fingers, doesn’t mean fingers is where it is now
When radiation exposure levels increase (realistically), we get more health problems like skin cancer, not everyone suddenly changing body parts like that.
Besides, it would require something tremendous to change our “base-10” counting system. Not only is it ingrained in our culture worldwide for centuries, but it’s practical and easy to use.
but it’s practical and easy to use.
There is nothing inherently special about base-10. It just seems easy to use because we are used to it.
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