Sumerians, 4-5000ya counted to 12 on one hand. 4 fingers with 3 sections each with the thumb as a pointer. Then the other hand counted off 5x12 which gave us yhe hexadecimal system of counting which is still in use today.
this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2026
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I can count to 31 in one hand in binary. It's not a super useful skill, but it's won me a bar bet more than once.
If you add things like arm position and rotation, you can add even more bits. Using 4 arm positions and 2 rotations, you can get a full byte of data with one hand.
I want to go to the kinds of bars where counting in binary wins bets. Most of the time it's things like "open a beer bottle with your eye socket".
The trick is to be the one making the bets and to word them in a way that makes the losing side sound like the winning side (or one that generates enough curiosity about how you can actually do it that people accept the bet knowing you probably have a trick).
Sexagesimal, hexadecimal is base 16. You could say that simply improving on mathematics lead to the hexadecimal system eventually but they did not create the hexadecimal system.
Is this something that can be easily taught? Could you teach us how to do this?
Use your thumb to "point" (touch) a section of your index finger, middle finger, ring finger, pinky...now move up a section of the finger.
Tada you learned it.
The other hand goes 1 when you maxed out your finger sections, then 2 when you do it again where one equals 12 and 2 equals 24 etc.
There's really nothing to it, no research needed...just attempt to mimic what the comment describes and you're there.
I can't verify anything but it seems to me if you want to know everything you could possibly know about the disaster, "That Chernobyl guy" is the place to go.
My favorite insult of all time involves telling someone to go count their dick
FYI a normal human can count to 31 on one hand using binary.
FYI anyone counting in binary on their hand(s) is decidedly not a normal human.
You mean !normal.
Now I had to try it out and I'm very proud of how each finger played along
Akshully, they would be counting to 11,111. That's nearly 100,000!
and China has well established hand gesture for 0-9 on one hand.
and even if you don't know that, it's quite easy to count to 12 using finger segments.
I have a well-established hand gesture for 1!
You should see my binary hand gesture for 4!
I chuckled at 4 (my favorite number!) when I just tried out counting to 31
5 is pretty funny too
I found the brit
I wish, but I don't get it. Is holding the thumb up while flipping the bird a British thing?
Impressive! In binary with one Hand you cant even count to 5!
5! = 120
that's why you can't count that high, with one hand.
🖕?
China? The 0 to 9 single handed gestures are used for a lot outside of that. Like divers use that, all kinds of trades, and the military.
Ah, I guess that's one specific method. Several have existed across many cultures and professions.
Use ternary. Up, down, half bent. I think that gets you to 242
Use decimal but with 10 different bend angles per finger.
Use a 0-255 range to represent the amount of rotation for each finger knuckle and you get up to like 2⁹⁶.
Or 14 if you use knuckles in Arabic
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Fun fact you can count to 27 if you cut your hand and count the bones.
Protip: you can count to one by counting your dick, but some people will count zero instead.
I can and do count to 10 on one hand. I just use ASL numbers
I can count to twelve on one hand like the Babylonians
12 distinctions on one hand and 4 on the other doesn't seem too smart to me... I'm with the binary crowd.
I can count to 31 using binary numbers!
You can count to 242 using ternary numbers if you give each digit three states instead of two.
I can go to 31. In binary.
I can count entirely on one hand with ASL. 1-10 are static hand positions
In Taiwan, we can count to 10 on one hand.
not great, not terrible.
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