1 HN user recommended this explainer1 month2013–2020score 1
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
HN uses it as the accessible overview of the dozenal system whenever base 12 or the 12 times table comes up.
Numberphile's James Grime makes the case for base 12 (dozenal) over base 10, showing how twelve's many divisors make arithmetic and everyday fractions easier.
“I suggest anyone reading this to also watch this video” (HN, 2016)
This reminds me of the duodecimal system: [this video] Mathematically, 10 is a pretty arbitrary choice to base your number system on. We would have been better off learning base 12 than inventing metric.
It's simple enough to Google "etymology eleven" to see that it is a base 10 word. Modern proponents of a dozenal system seem to prefer the words "el" and "doz" for eleven and twelve. I would totally be in for changing, but realistically it'll never happen. Numberphile on the dozenal system: [this video]
Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.
Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed
3 Hacker News comments
From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.
Citations, criticism and jokes