Using binary with bent/straight fingers gets you up to 31. There are other ways - like touching your thumb to different phalanges of different fingers, for 0…12.
great point… and if after the 12 you start touching your thumb to the other side of those phalanges, you now have 24. now each time you go through the 24 cycle, your other hand can tick along the same cycle like an hour hand. now you are counting to 550+ with 2 hands.
Using binary with bent/straight fingers gets you up to 31. There are other ways - like touching your thumb to different phalanges of different fingers, for 0…12.
I never thought about doing it that way, so I counted in binary with my right hand… Tricky but oddly satisfying
Edit: shit, I’m getting faster at this. I might have to convert
Imagine how boss a culture would be being able to count up to 31 on a single hand, and 1023 with two hands.
Help! I was counting and somehow hit negative 15. Is there a bug?
great point… and if after the 12 you start touching your thumb to the other side of those phalanges, you now have 24. now each time you go through the 24 cycle, your other hand can tick along the same cycle like an hour hand. now you are counting to 550+ with 2 hands.
Or you could just use the 10 fingers, 2^10 is 1024, so you can count from 0 to 1023
Doesn’t work for people with connected muscles for pinkies😔