============================================================ THE DSA NEWSCAST http://www.dozenal.org ============================================================ The Dozenal Society of America Vol. 1, Iss. 7 Official Newsletter 1 September 11E9 ============================================================ ============================================================ = CONTENTS = ============================================================ 1. Donations 2. Article: Using SDN 3. Dozenal News -TGM book for sale in hard copy -"An Open Letter to Supporters of a Dozenal System" -"Pourquoi pas douze ?" -Dozenal Clock for Chrome -Nystrom's "Duodenal System of Arithmetic" -Leibniz on Dozenal -Laplace on Dozenal 4. Society Business -Bulletin Publication -Potential Presentation at NCTM 5. Poetical Diversion 6. Dozenal Thoght of the Month 7. Backmatter ============================================================ = DONATIONS = ============================================================ Members, please remember that while dues are no longer required for membership, we still rely on the generosity of members to keep the DSA going. Donations of any amount, large or small, are welcome and needed. A donation of $10; ($12.) will procure Subscription membership, and entitles the payer to receive both a digital and a paper copy of the _Bulletin_ if requested. Other members will receive only a digital copy. To invoke this privilege, please notify the Editor of the Bulletin, Mike deVlieger, at mdevlieger@dozenal.org As members know, we are a volunteer organization which pays no salaries. As such, every penny you donate goes toward furthering the DSA's goals. It may be worth considering a monthly donation; say, $3, or $6, or whatever seems reasonable to you. This can be set up quite easily with Paypal. Of course, if you prefer to donate by check, you may send them to our worthy Treasurer, Jay Schiffman, payable to the Dozenal Society of America, at: Jay Schiffman 604-36 South Washington Square, #815 Philadelphia, PA 19106-4115 ----------------------Member Benefits----------------------- Chief among the benefits of membership, aside from the knowledge of supporting the DSA's mission, is receipt of _The Duodecimal Bulletin_. In addition, however, members also receive (digitally) a membership card containing their vital member information and a monthly calendar with dozenal numbers, containing suitable and educational dozenal quotations and graphics, laid out for wall display. To receive these, please notify us that you'd like to receive them: Contact@dozenal.org ============================================================ = USING SDN = ============================================================ We saw, in Issue 01:06, the basics of Systematic Dozenal Nomenclature (SDN). To recap very briefly, here is the chart of SDN words: Num. Part. Pos. Power Neg. Power ----- ------ ----------- ------------ 0 Nil Nilqua Nilcia 1 Un Unqua Uncia 2 Bi Biqua Bicia 3 Tri Triqua Tricia 4 Quad Quadqua Quadcia 5 Pent Pentqua Pentcia 6 Hex Hexqua Hexcia 7 Sept Septqua Septcia 8 Oct Octqua Octcia 9 Enn Ennqua Enncia X Dec Decqua Deccia E Lev Levqua Levcia We also saw that the simplest way to use SDN is to name the highest power in the number, and then to list the digits in order. For example, the current year is 11E9; in SDN, we could pronounce this as: 11E9 = "one triqua one elv nine" Of course, rather than "elv," one could use "el," "eleven," or any other word for ten plus one. A common abbreviaton, when dealing with two-digit numbers, is to drop the "un" part of "unqua"; so "24" is "twoqua four," "XE" is "tenqua elv." Numbers of this length are used so very often that this abbreviation can be extremely helpful. With fractional parts, the system is still very simple. Many dozenalists use the word "dit" to refer to the fractional spot, similarly to the way we say "point" in decimal. As an example, let's take a number we're unlikely to actually use: the cube of pi (3;18480949 ^ 3). 27;00XX1X09 = "two (un)qua seven dit zero zero ten ten one ten zero nine" When we need to refer to a fractional number by itself, we have some options. Sometimes, as in decimal, we'll simply list the digits: 0;005 = "zero dit zero zero five" Other times, we may want to state the order of magnitude explicitly: 0;005 = "five tricia" 0;00000045 = "four dit five septcia" 0;00000045 = "four (un)qua five octcia" Whatever seems clearer in a given situation should be used. As noted last time, you can expect a full exposition of SDN in an upcoming _Bulletin_; until then, you can learn more at the DozensOnline forum, and at http://gorpub.freeshell.org/dozenal/blosxom.cgi/dozapp.html#sdn In our next issue, we'll see how SDN can be used to form linguistic words; e.g., the names of polygons, of anniversaries, and so forth. ============================================================ = DOZENAL NEWS = ============================================================ ---------------TGM Book for Sale in Hard Copy--------------- Around 26 years ago, Tom Pendlebury of the DSGB devised the TGM system of metrology. This complete, coherent, and consistently dozenal metric system has remained well known and popular in both the DSGB and the DSA. Now, for the first time since Pendlebury's original booklet, a complete exposition of the TGM system is available in print. A printed edition of the book already available at the DSA website, this volume is a must for the dozenal library. http://www.lulu.com/shop/donald-goodman/tgm-a-coherent-dozenal-metrology/paperback/product-21095233.html Priced extremely low at only $8, all profits are donated directly back to the DSA. ------An Open Letter to Supporters of a Dozenal System------ An anonymous author on the Internet had published a brief article on his ideas for new dozenal characters, along with linking to a Youtube video by Numberphile explaining (and arguably supporting) the dozenal system: http://gfax.ch/dozenal He ends up with essentially the Hammond symbol for ten and an inverted seven for eleven. Also contains an animated gif showing the seven-segment versions of his characters along with 0-9, progressively counting up to eleven and starting over. Very neat. -------------------Pourquoi pas douze ?--------------------- For those of our membership who can read French, I happened upon an interesting little article from the University of Grenoble on the French Commission on Weights and Measures and its decision to decimalize weights and measures rather than to dozenalize counting: http://ljk.imag.fr/membres/Bernard.Ycart/mel/ax/node18.html Providing some quotations from the actual report of the Commission, this confirms what has often been reported but rarely quoted in English-language dozenal publications: that the Commission very seriously considered adopting the dozenal base, and that some members or those close them, notably Pierre-Simon de Laplace, later regretted the decision they made. The article can't really be called dozenalist (he refers to the decision made by the Commission by saying "[c]ette décision de bon sens"), but he notes that "les partisants de la base 12 et du changement radical étant nombreux et passionés" (the supporters of base twelve were numerous and passionate) and that there was "débats houleux" (rousing debate) about the issue. The last line is poetic, and references our Society: "Si le coeur vous en dit, n'hésitez pas à reprendre le flambeau, vous ne serez pas seuls"; "If the heart speaks these things to you, do not hesitate to take up the torch, you will not be alone," followed by a link to www.dozenal.org. --------------Dozenal Clock for Chrome Browser-------------- If you're a user of the Chrome or Chromium web browser, there is now a dozenal clock which you can easily access from the browser. http://t.co/KmPXUIqu2Z Drag this into your Chrome extensions folder to install. Essentially, this extension provides easy access to one of Dr. Paul Rapoport (#230)'s dozenal clocks, which we discussed in a previous issue. This version provides a clock for a 20-hour day (like our current clock), and uses the Pitman numerals (a rotated 2 and 3) for ten and eleven. For users of Chrome or Chromium, a worthwhile extension. Thanks to Derik Kauffman (#3E3) for writing this extension and making us aware of it. ---------------Duodenal System of Arithmetic---------------- John Nystrom, a famous Swedish-American engineer (1081 -- 1111), is mostly known in mathematical circles for his Tonal System, an unquadral (SDN; in decimal-speak, "hexadecimal") system of numeration and measurement. However, later in life, Nystrom published as an appendix to an engineering textbook his "Duodenal System of Arithmetic," which supports as superior the dozenal system. Other than his unfortunate choice of name in selecting "Duodenal," Nystrom presents a considered and interesting argument in favor of dozenalism. The DSA is happy to be able to offer a newly typeset version of this appendix: http://www.dozenal.org/drupal/content/duodenal-system-arithmetic-measures-weights-and-coins ---------------------Leibniz on Dozenal--------------------- Gottfried Leibniz, the famed inventor of calculus (he appears to have done this independently of Newton) and great enthusiast of binary arithmetic, actually made a statement about dozenal! Little cited even in dozenal literature, Leibniz had the following to say, when discussing his binary system: "I am not in any way recommending this [binary] way of counting in order to introduce it in place of the ordinary practice of counting by ten. For, aside from the fact that we are accustomed to this,...[t]he practice of counting by ten is shorter and the numbers not as long. And if we were accustomed to proceed by twelves or sixteens, there would be even more of an advantage." _Explanation of Binary Arithmetic_, found on the creatively (!) named www.leibniz-translations.com. And this statement in support of using base twelve came as early as E9E (1703)! This has been the earliest explicit endorsement of dozenal, even though it is quite off-hand in this text, of which your author has ever been made aware. Coming from a mathematician of this calibre, even sideways praise of dozenal is quite remarkable. ---------------------Laplace on Dozenal--------------------- We are proud to announce our first foreign-language resource (other than Esperanto): an excerpt from famous French mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace on the dozenal system. http://www.dozenal.org/drupal/content/laplace-sur-douzainisme While Laplace admits dozenal to be superior to decimal, he believes that it is practically unachievable. Here's to believing that he's right about the former, and wrong about the latter. This article is in French; however, Laplace's actual text is presented in English, as well. ============================================================ = SOCIETY BUSINESS = ============================================================ --------------------Bulletin Publication-------------------- To recap last month's announcement, the _Bulletin_ will be published on the following schedule: Sep 16: _The Duodecimal Bulletin_ WN X0, for 11E7 (2011.) Dec 10: _The Duodecimal Bulletin_ WN X1, for 11E8 (2012.) Mar 01: _The Duodecimal Bulletin_ WN X2, for 11E9 (2013.) This will have us caught up to the current year, and future issues published in 11EX (after WN X2) will be for that year (11EX, or 2014.). ---------------Potential Presentation at NCTM--------------- At our annual meeting, due to the successful ASEE presentation discussed in our last issue, the DSA suggested research into a similar practice next year. That is, we wished to investigate the possibilities of setting our annual meeting close in time to some mathematical conference and submit a presentation on dozenals and alternative bases to that conference. This year, we are considering setting the meeting to coincide with the National Conference of Teachers of Mathematics. There are two regional conferences of the NCTM next year, in October and November, in Indianapolis, IN and Richmond, VA. We are in need of people to help with such a presentation. If you are interested in doing so in any capacity, plese write us at: Contact@dozenal.org This could be great publicity for dozenal and the Society, so please, write if you're able to help. ============================================================ = POETICAL DIVERSION = ============================================================ In the following verse, the word "tel" is the author's word for twelve. "Let us then be up and doing;" Rouse ye now, ye valiant men, The light of science still pursuing, Thunder o'er the ranks of TEN. Onward to the conflict press ye, Bearing high the flag of TEL; And may coming ages bless ye, Proclaiming that ye have done well. Rev. Thomas J. A. Freeman, Systems of Numeration: A Plea for the Duodecimal (1119). ============================================================ = BACKMATTER = ============================================================ _The DSA Newscast_ is a production of the Dozenal Society of America. If you have received this publication in error, or otherwise do not wish to receive it anymore, please unsubscribe by mailing a message containing the string "UNSUBSCRIBE DSA NEWSCAST", exactly as typed, in its body, to the Reply-To address of this message. For questions, comments, submissions, or other communication with the _Newscast_, please write to: newscast@dozenal.org EACH ONE, TEACH ONE