Eight Hundred And Eighty Six

One week to go until the general election, and then finally the tension will dissolve. Three major votes in three years is quite a lot for any country to handle! Thankfully, it's almost over. What an odd election it is, but still somehow exciting.

Quirky Muffin 900 is fast approaching, and preparations are well underway. It will be a very, very long post. It has to be, as it's a compilation, but a compilation of what? It's a secret. Will anyone even notice? Is the world made of cheese? It will be nice, in any case, a fitting moment. The thousandth post, on the other hand, remains a complete mystery even to its eventual writer. A thousand seems a significant number, doesn't it? At least we won't have to worry about it here for a while!

Significant numbers... The most significant number to all of us is not one we thing about very often. One thing I say to every new student is that our system is based on the super-useful number ten because of one simple fact: We have ten digits on our hands. I don't know if it's true or not, but it is credible. We count in tens because we could always count in tens easily. It's habitual. It's miraculous that there have been societies that didn't use tens! The Babylonians had a numeral system based in on the number sixty somehow, for goodness sake!

My work as a tutor is almost entirely done if I can get a student to understand that it's all about tens. Yes, at older ages, algebra and statistics become important, but it all stems from tens. Despite all that, it is entirely possible to use a different number system. There's no reason not to, except for convention. Convention rules over all, and if you suggest something different, people look at you as if you're insane. Why not build the jigsaw from the inside out? It's not madness! Why not count in thirteens? It's not impossible. What if we would?

What if we would?

O.

PS The Mayan numeral system is so pretty...