description
 the octomatics project is about a new number system
which has a lot of advantages over our old decimal system.
the name comes from the mixture of 'octal' and 'mathematics'.

what do you think: why do we have the decimal system
in our western world? because of our 10 fingers? why
do we have 7 days a week? why are 60 seconds 1 minute
and 60 minutes 1 hour? why do we have 24 hours a day?
and 31 or 30 days a month? do you think thats a really
good solution? well, here is another one:

...welcome to octomatics !

the new numbers
how many numbers are the optimum? 8? 10? 12? 16?
i think it's 8 or 12. make it 8 and you will be able to read
and work with binary code without any transformation.

i think the numbers should look more technically than
letters. maybe they could look like the following:







what would be the binary code? it should be:

000 . 001 . 010 . 011 . 100 . 101 . 110 . 111



do you see any similarities? if you want to write it really
fast by hand it might look like this after a while:

calculation
the really good thing about the octomatics-number-system is
that you can calculate visually. just add or remove the strokes!




(...of course: if 2 strokes hit they will be "destroyed" and carried
one position left when adding...pretty much like normal binary math).
try it...it's very easy!

for multiplication you still need to memorize the multiplication-
table...but it is much smaller and easier than the decimal one:




how about counting with your fingers? just use your 8 fingers
to count...you still have the two thumbs for the powers:
that means you can count up to 24 that way!

or you do it the binary way (we will show you some pictures
about that soon...). pro: you fingers look exactly like the numbers
and you can count to 31 with one hand and up to 1023 with both!!

chronology
forget what you know about hours, days and weeks. only leave
the natural time measurements (day: earth turns round 1 time,
month: moon period, year: summer + winter) and you could end
up like this:

one day has 8 units (see below):





one week has 8 days (you have one more day to relax...smile)
about 4 weeks make one month (3.8 to be exact...today that's 4.345).
12 month make one year...just like today.

what about world time? we thought about that...and we don't like
swatch-beats...but more about that soon...

by the way: this is the octomatics time you spent on this website:
(you need the flash-plugin):

tools
here you find some little tools which will help you to get started
with your switch to the octomatics world ;-)

maybe you still need to be compatible to the old decimal system
sometimes. in that case you may find this a helpful tool:



we still need to convince texas instruments that this would
be a really important and profitable new device:




in the meantime we will have to put up
with our handhelds:


we haven't finished our 'octocalc.prc'...but here you
can get the feeling for it with our flash-version.
"real" world
 on the 20.01.2001 the nation organon officially announced
the adoption of the octomatics number system as the main
national number system.
feedback

of course we know, that a wide utilization of octomatics is not
going to happen in the near future;-). the octomatics project
is just a fun example to show, what can be done with simple visual
concepts and some fresh thinking.

but habit is a strong force...and we are deeply rooted in
our decimal number system...but who knows...?

so...what do you think about this system?
i hope you got some inspiration and became a little octimised ;-).

send wishes, ideas or comments to:

octomatics@iverse.org