Some people say we would be better off using base 12, also known as the duodecimal or dozenal system.
For example, you can readily find a sixth, a third, a quarter, or a half in base 12, whereas you can only find
a half easily in base 10. Twelve is also a good match for our calendar, our clock, and even our compass. Ah well,
the decision to use base 10 in daily life was made long ago!
The point of this discussion is to show that base 10 is simply one number system of many. One can
compute in base 10, or base 12, or base-any-other-number. Our choice of number system can be thought of as
arbitrary??”we??™ve got 10 fingers, so let??™s use base 10. We could compute just as competently in base 7, or base
12, or base 2.
Computers use base 2, because it??™s easy to build hardware that computes based on only two states??”on and
off, one and zero. Base 2 is also called the ???binary number system,??? and the columns in a base-2 number work
the same way as in any other base. The rightmost column is for units (20), the next column to the left is for twos
(21), the next is for fours (22 = 4), the next is for eights (23 = 8), the next is for sixteens (24 = 16), etc.
What is the base-10 value of the binary number 10011010? The column quantities from right to left are 128
(27), 64 (26), 32 (25), 16 (24), 8 (23), 4 (22), 2 (21), 1 (20).
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