cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/53581443
YSK You can count past 1,000 on your fingers by using binary, instead of just 10
With just one hand, you can count to 31, and with both hands you can reach a whopping 1,023. This is because the placement of the held up fingers matters, rather than the amount.
It can be very useful in everyday use, being able to count to huge numbers when you don’t have your phone or pen and paper nearby.
Big numbers are cool, but you can actually count to 100, not 10, in decimal, by using two hands.
On your right hand:
Pointer = 1
Pointer + Middle = 2
Those + Ring = 3
Those + Pinky = 4
Thumb alone = 5
Thumb + Pointer = 6
Those + Middle = 7 Those + Ring = 8
Those + Pinky = 9
Now hold up your left hand and stick your pointer finger out. Put all right fingers down. That’s 10.
So I’ve shown you how to count to 10 on one hand. The other hand is the tens place, so by having two hand signals that go up to 10, you have two digits and therefore 100. And once you know the trick, it’s super easy to read, too. If you’re gesturing to someone else, reverse the hands so they can read it left to right.
As long as we are going that far, maybe we should stick to a system that if already in use
So growing up I was taught ASL. And I can tell you, knowing how to count high on a single hand REALLY helped in my lower grades for math. I used to see kids put down their pencil to keep counting, and I’d be counting on my fingers with one hand. Very practical.
And when you get older, if you and your friends know ASL, you can sign across rooms (like noisy bars). Just throwing that out there.
Cool! I imagine ASL goes higher than 20? Because if it didn’t, the system I learned wins since it can go 0-100.
I think the one I learned is easier to learn/memorise, too.
But since we’re talking about counting/doing math on your fingers, I’m not sure which is easier. That said, the one I learned was from a YouTube video about mental calculations. They said that was how they counted really fast. Still subjective, though.
ASL can count as high as you need to, it gets kind of tedious after about a 999, because of all the place markers that need to be added in (like manual counting, or spelling out a number on a check), but one can sign up to 999 with a single hand. for numbers up to 99, it’s more or less using the chart above. For everything after that you mark the hundreds place with the letter C and then go on the rest of the number (476, would be signed 4 C 76). Beyond that, it’s just a matter of adding on the place value signs for “THOUSAND”, “MILLION”, etc. (which are two handed signs) so, 456,789 would be signed as 4 C THOUSAND 56 7 C 89.
The exception to this would be strings of numbers, like phone or room numbers, where you sign them much like how they’d be spoken. So when directing someone to room 235, you’d just sign 2 35 (the concept of hundreds isn’t really important here, because in most cases, the leading 2 just means the room is on the second floor).
Edit: ASL is very visual so here’s a link (with the caveat that there’s variations in signs between signers/ regions, so online stuff may be different than what folks in your area are using)
Uhh, 100 uses 3 digits.
True.
But, two thumbs up = 100 and no fingers up at all = 0.
It’s like rolling “1d100” in D&D. Unless you actually have a 100-sided die (a ball with a weight in it so it eventually stops with a number up), you roll 2d10 and declare in advance which one is the tens place (some have a zero at the end of each digit, so that’s tens by default). That gets you 1-100 with no zero option.
So, you’re right that two digits have 100 numbers, 0-99. The dice system has 100 numbers, 1-100. The hand system I described goes 0-100. So technically one of those is a 3 digit number. But, the system allows it and doesn’t (easily) allow any more 3 digit numbers.
So how would you distinguish this from 55?
Yeah, I think they’re confusing themselves a little bit. Which is unfortunate because it’s a pretty good system actually, it just counts 0-99 not 0-100 like they’re claiming.
you can also count to 12 on one hand, by counting the segments on your index through pinky fingers with the thumb. Fingertips are 1-4, middle segments 5-8, lower segments 9-12.