alt Hacker News> Language models trained on natural text learn to represent numbers using periodic features with dominant periods at T=2,5,10.
This proves a decimal system is correct. Base twelve numeral systems are clearly unnatural and inefficient.
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dunham • yesterday at 6:44 PM
Historically, quite a few languages were (or are) vigesimal. Perhaps decimal is also unnatural.
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This is just a result of base 10 being dominant in our natural languages. I assume if we really used base 12, things would be different.
What would using base 12 in our natural language mean? Number names needed to be based on 12, not 10. Thirteen, twenty-seven, our numbers have base 10 embedded in their naming.