A conspicuous example is the proposed adoption of the decimal system in coinage and weights and measures.
A purely decimal system of coins would be an intolerable nuisance, because it would require a greatly increased number of small coins.
He wrote textbooks of astronomy, geometry and medicine, and introduced the Arabic numbers and the decimal system into Europe.
The great advantage of these numbers is, that they proceed on the decimal system—that is, they denote different values according to their relative places, each character signifying ten times more accordingly as it occupies a place higher.
The simple and scientific method of computation by what is called the decimal system, is used at this moment, we are told, by more than half the human race.
The tenth power of 100, for instance, when it is written in our decimal system, is a figure with twenty-one digits.
Then the complications of the scheme have been criticised, and the decimal system has come in for a little criticism.
The latter fits much more easily and would bring the full benefits of the decimal system, because it would only involve two places of decimals.
