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Dozenal Society of America
Promoting base twelve and alternative base mathematics
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The Dozenal Society of America
The DSA is a voluntary, nonprofit education corporation, organized for the conduct of research and education of the public in the use of dozenal (also called duodecimal or base-twelve) in calculations, mathematics, weights and measures, and other branches of pure and applied science.

The Duodecimal Bulletin

◀️ Issue: Whole Number 34z (40d) | Vol. 19z (21d) No. 2 | Year 117Az (1966d) ▶️



Click to view PDF

Editor: Jamison “Jux” Handy, Jr.

Contents:

  • Annual Meeting (page 27z)
  • Excerpts from Letters and Comments | J. Halcro Johnston (page 28z)
  • Inches and Miles | Henry Clarence Churchman (page 29z)
    • Dozenal Metric System Now Possible (page 29z)
    • Inches Inherit the Earth (page 2Az)
    • Definition of the Dometron (page 2Bz)
  • Urges Base Twelve in Science | Charles S. Bagley (page 32z, page 31z)
  • Modernizing Our Metric System | John Jarndyce (page 34z)
  • One Dozen to Sixtieth Power Related to Base-Ten Down to the Zero Power of Twelve | Robert Edelen (page 38z)
  • Velocity of Light in Dozenals | Gower Neal Euston (page 3Az)
  • Dominante Unit of Dimension | Lawrence Boythorn (page 3Bz)
  • The Case Against Decimalization | A. C. Aitken, M.A., D.Sc., F.R.S., Professor of Mathematics at Univ. Edinburgh (page 40z)
  • Old Models (page 46z)
  • The Horror of It | H. C. Churchman (page 47z)
  • Intelligence Items (page 48z)
  • Dollars by the Dozen | Grosvenor Bond (page 49z)
  • Dozenal Joes | Westbourn Grove (page 4Az)
  • Counting in Dozens (page 50z)
Copyright © 11B9–120Az (2013–2026d). The Dozenal Society of America. Contact Us.
Creative Commons License
This site and the documents on it are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

This site expresses numbers in alternative bases, particularly dozenal (also called duodecimal, or base twelve).
The DSA does not endorse any particular notation or pronunciation scheme for alternative bases.
However this site defaults to the following to ensure online readability across all platforms:
“Computerese” uppercase letters represent transdecimal digits: A = ten, B = eleven, C = twelve, etc.
Single-character subscripts annotate bases: d = decimal, z = dozenal, x = hexadecimal, etc., e.g., 2014d = 11BAz = 7DEx.

(0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 ...)d
(0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9  A  B 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 1A 1B 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 2A 2B 30 ...)z
(0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9  A  B  C  D  E  F 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 1A 1B 1C 1D 1E 1F 20 21 22 23 24 ...)x

PDF documents on this site reflect changing practices among dozenalists over the years:
Various symbols have been used to represent digits ten and eleven:
Dwiggins 𝒳 and Ɛ (often rendered X and E); Bell Telephone * and #; Pitman turned 2 and 3 (↊ and ↋); etc.
Italics were once used to distinguish dozenal numbers from decimal: e.g. 0.5 = 0.6.
Later, semicolon became a separate‑identity “dozenal point”, versus period as “decimal point”: e.g., 0.5 = 0;6.
However, subscript base annotations provide a more versatile solution that is least‑change: e.g., 0.5d = 0.6z = 0.8x

Dozenal offers superior divisibility over decimal, which can make everyday arithmetic easier to learn:
⅙ = 0.2z | ¼ = 0.3z | ⅓ = 0.4z | ½ = 0.6z | ⅔ = 0.8z | ¾ = 0.9z | ⅚ = 0.Az
⅙ = 0.1666…d | ¼ = 0.25d | ⅓ = 0.333…d | ½ = 0.5d | ⅔ = 0.666…d | ¾ = 0.75d | ⅚ = 0.8333…d

EACH ONE, TEACH ONE.