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Finger-counting, also known as dactylonomy, is the act of counting using one's fingers. There are multiple different systems used across time and between cultures, though many of these have seen a decline in use because of the spread of Arabic numerals .
36 represented in chisanbop, where four fingers and a thumb are touching the table and the rest of the digits are raised. The three fingers on the left hand represent 10+10+10 = 30; the thumb and one finger on the right hand represent 5+1=6. Counting from 1 to 20 in Chisanbop. Each finger has a value of one, while the thumb has a value of five.
Finger binary is a system for counting and displaying binary numbers on the fingers of either or both hands. Each finger represents one binary digit or bit. This allows counting from zero to 31 using the fingers of one hand, or 1023 using both: that is, up to 2 5 −1 or 2 10 −1 respectively.
[3] [4] Finally, there are neurological connections between the parts of the brain that appreciate quantity and the part that "knows" the fingers (finger gnosia), and these suggest that humans are neurologically predisposed to use their hands in counting. [5] [6] While finger-counting is typically not something that preserves archaeologically ...
Older finger counting methods used the four fingers and the three bones in each finger to count to twelve. [3] Other hand-gesture systems are also in use, for example the Chinese system by which one can count to 10 using only gestures of one hand. With finger binary it is possible to keep a finger count up to 1023 = 2 10 − 1.
Georges Ifrah speculatively traced the origin of the duodecimal system to a system of finger counting based on the knuckle bones of the four larger fingers. Using the thumb as a pointer, it is possible to count to 12 by touching each finger bone, starting with the farthest bone on the fifth finger, and counting on.
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Counting in prehistory was first assisted by using body parts, primarily the fingers.This is reflected in the etymology of certain number names, such as in the names of ten and hundred in the Proto-Indo-European numerals, both containing the root *dḱ also seen in the word for "finger" (Latin digitus, cognate to English toe).