I love the Numberphile. His videos are always great and they remind me of the wonder I get when I sat through some of the more esoteric mathematics courses in undergrad. With regard to the base 12 system, I think that it makes sense why these people are pushing for it. I mean I never really thought about 12 as being prevalent, but I guess it is. I'd just be happy if the US adopted the metric system for things other than government and scientific work. I mean come on, 1000 meters in a kilometer is so much easier than 5280 feet in a mile or 1760 yards or 63360 inches.
The conceptual leap required to effectively perform mathematics in this new system would require a re-write for most people's already fragile understanding of maths. My dad spends at least one minute every time he eats out to calculate 15% of the bill with a pen and paper. Plus, it's 20% nowadays, ya old dick. Cool side note: The value of every single physical constant would change. Yes? >the sarcastic paragraph
Of course, this minor adjustment into base 12 would pale in comparison to the sheer inconvenience of Americans performing simple metric conversions for a few months to a couple years (and for some Americans, never) until they can think in Standard International units.
>it's over now There would be considerable costs associated with switching ongoing government/military, scientific, business, and civilian operations from base 10 to 12. We're certainly too entrenched in base 10 for that to be a smooth transition. Whiny side note: I had a component that needed metric screws for fastening. Are M6 screws hard to find in a U.S. city of 1.5 million? Why, yes. Yes they are.
Horses for courses. Base 16 is a great representation when you want to visualise computer memory contents (see my other comment); but that doesn't mean people will ever use it for ordinary counting. Same for 12 - not gonna happen. No impetus to do so, no gain.