Base16

Base 16 is the principle of design behind building houses in real life and making maps for a video game.

A very hilarious conversation often takes place in regards to the imperial system of measurement versus the metric system. Metric sucks, it's communist math and I'll prove it.

Let's just first recap why you think metric is good.

- nice round numbers

- water boils at 100c

- water freezes at 0c

- ???

Every time a builder receives a plans in metric, it gets converted to imperial. This is due to base 16 being a standard of operation. Observe the following verbal communication differences between both.

Imperial - "I need a piece at 23' and 15/16"

23 feet and 15/16 inches is approximately equal to 7.0342 meters in the metric system.

Metric "I need a piece at 7 meters and 342 mil."

One clearly communicates more effectively than the other when operating at base 16. This issues is further exacerbated when doing any form of arithmetic. Observe the following:

Imperial - 23' and 15/16 / 2 = 11.5 and 15/32 (No calculator required, can be done most people's head)

Metric - 7.0342 /2 = 3.5171 (Requires doing written arithmetic for most people)

It also should be noted that it is far easier to retain in your head an imperial measurement than a metric measurement.

It should be said that working with fractions is not necessarily a form of arithmetic, because of how it is designed to be done in your head. Is math math if you can totally do it in your head? I like to hold the distinction between had math and arithmetic, even though a wild range exists in capabilities.