Basically,
Batten-Number Space
plays with "
number
bases":
i.e. the
number of symbols used to represent a number. "10" (in base ten)
can be (for example) "1010" in base 2, "101" in base 3, "22" in
base 4 -or "20" in base 5 (which means 2*5 + 0)....
Base 5 is of course the
system used by both
Roman
Numerals and the
abacus. People often think that
Roman Numbers are rather
difficult to use -but I suspect they were very efficient for
people who use an
abacus (
which
the Romans of course did).
Because we have
5 fingers
on each hand (and
5 toes on
each foot) people around the world tend to use either
base 10 -or base 20.
The number system in the Danish language still use a rudiment of
an old numeral system, mainly between 49 and 100:
50 = 2.5
times 20 = half the third times twenty = half tre sinds
tyve = today: "halvtreds" (sinds = times)
60 = 3 times 20 = tre sinds tyve =
tres
70 = 3.5 times 20 = halv fjerde sinds tyve =
halvfjerds
(75 = fem(5) og halvfjerds(70) they place the singular digit
first)
80 = 4 times 20 = fire sinds tyve =
firs
90 = 4.5 times 20 = halv femte sinds tyve = halvfems
(but 100 is *not* 5 times 20 = femte sinds tyve = fems
(with thanks to Sven Börtz)
The French also work in a similar way: So "
seventy"
in English becomes "
three times twenty plus ten" in
French. The
English Bible refers to the
life of a human as "
three score plus ten" (
a score being 20). I understand the
Mayan calendar worked with
base 60 (and
20)...
In modern times, we
still have
60 seconds in minute
and
60 minutes in an hour -and
60 * 6 = 360 degrees in a circle (
which is a small miscalculation of
the number of days in a year).
The lunar month is
28 days
long..... (
which is 4 * 7 days)...... \
The ancient (
British)
pre-metric systems used
16 inches to the foot, 3 feet to the yard,
16
ounces to the pound and
2 Pints
to the Quart -and
4 Quarts
to the Gallon,
Nowadays, only computers,
and the nerds that serve them, use bases other than
10, it seems.....
I believe
there is a great conceptual; poverty in modern life!
Operating with different number
bases changes the number of "
bits" (
the
number of "places" used
to represent the complete number.) One could perhaps
consider each "
bit" to be
a"'
dimension of space".
