The penalty kick law

[tarquinbeech]

Arithmetic would have been much simpler if we humans had been born with twelve fingers and not ten. Ten is the root of all metric measurement and seems simple but it's drawback is that it is divisible by only the numbers 2 and 5, so unless the decimal point is used you cannot have 1/3, 1/4, 1/6 or 1/12 or multiples of these, however if we had twelve fingers we could. If we count from one to ten (on our twelve fingers) and then use the two numbers eleven and twelve, then to carry on counting, instead of thir****, four****, etc, we use something like onedoz (doz for dozen), twodoz, threedoz, etc.

It's too late for us now of course but in Mansfield they've been using for centuries.

The system of counting in 12s was done, in ancient times, by using one hand, preferably your left as this frees up the right hand to reach for a knife or sword.....simply use the thumb to point to whichever part of your first finger you are referring, 1, 2 or 3.....next finger is 4, 5 and 6.....the lowest section of the little finger is 12...you start the next count with a "thumbs up" or 1 dozen on the same hand and continue...or mark off your "dozen" by holding out one finger on the other....eventually you got to 5 x 12s ie 60 which became the basis of minutes and seconds, 360 degrees in a circle and the original 360 days in a year.

60 is a slightly more superior number to work with than 100, because it can be broken down into 3s and 6s.....as pointed out 12 is a far superior number than 10 because of 3s, 4s and 6s......12 was also the number of lunar months in a year and a day was broken down into 12 "hours", 1 was dawn, 10 light and 1 dusk......the original 12 hours varied in length between summer and winter.

The top thumb knuckle joint ie number 1 became 1 inch on a male adult....the 4 bottom joints from index to little finger is 4 inches, or 1 "hand" for measuring horses.....12 inches or 3 hands became a foot.....3 feet a yard etc etc

Then the French came along and screwed everything up.