Abstract
IN “Octonaria”(Math. Gaz., October, 1941) “Peter Simple” gives, in an account of an imaginary State, what is really a plea for a system of numeration and weights and measures based upon eight instead of ten. It is urged that continued divisibility by two is a property of the greatest importance. For example, the seven weights, each double the last, of 1, 2, 4, 8 ounces, and 1, 2, 4 pounds will make up every weight, to the nearest ounce, up to 127 ounces, whereas with the seven metric weights 1, 2, 2, 5, 10, 10, 20 grams, we get only as far as 50 grams. Some of the existing British measures fit easily into the octonarian system. For example, 8 pints = 1 gallon, 8 gallons = 1 bushel, 8 bushels = 1 quarter. As for money, if the crown (one eighth of £2) were divided into sixty-four pennies instead of the present sixty, each new penny would be fifteen sixteenths of the old.
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Octonarian Weights and Measures. Nature 149, 106 (1942). https://doi.org/10.1038/149106c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/149106c0