Thanks to Shaun for posting the image I was trying to send to the website...

The image is of number symbol designs I came up with... each symbol has the number of line segments corresponding to that integer...

http://www.dozenalsociety.org.uk/dropzone/claynumerals.jpg

cheers...

robin

Well, if you consider that the Chinese numeral 4 has 5 strokes, none of those are terribly burdonsome. So that's ok. The line segment corellation is really neat. And they do go together very well, since they are all very linear in nature.

However, several of them are way too close to other symbols which do come up rather often:

2: The V is not good if you're doing anything with volumes or voltages. So, you might want to flip that upside down.

3: The triangle is used for variation and, well, to denote triangles (though that's usually clear from context). Unfortunately, upside down, it's the gradient, so... how about a bird's foot? (three segments from the center--one up, and 2 at the bottom)

4: A plus sign could be a problem. You might want to stick to the regular 4, which can easily be modifed to have 4 line segments. (just look at an old digital clock)

6: It's a bit too much like an asterisk, which people might mistake for multiplication. I'd recommend an hourglass. (upside down triangle on top of an upright one)

9: It looks a lot like an A. That might not be a problem at all; however, an upright triangle with a smaller upside down triangle inside (first iteration of serpinski fractal), would also do the trick. Also, it's a cool shape :lol:

The rest are fine.

If you'd like, I can draw up a revised version in MS Paint.

Well, I went ahead and fooled around with them in paint. I ended up modifying the 7 as well so it wouldn't look too much like an inequality sign. So that looks good now. Unfortunately, my chickenfoot 3 looks too much like a lamda.

Ok. I ended up changing 3 and 4 much more subtly than previously suggested. I made the triangle a right triangle and the plus a cross. I also got the 7 a little more top-heavy, and stuff like that. I didn't change the 4 so much, because the digital clock 4 has no symmetry. And it just didn't go well with the rest of them.

hi eap,

thanks for the feedback on the symbol set...

it occured to me that maybe there is even a simpler, possibly more universally recognizable method... i've been pondering the whole notion a bit...

what if there were say three basic 'marks'... lines, curves... or something... ? I'll call those a,b,c ... then... just create a matrix of sorts:

a aa ab ac
b ba bb bc
c ca cb cc...

or, four basic marks:

de df dg
ed ef eg
fd fe fg
gd ge gf

don't know... just throwing it out there...

cheers, robin

Those two work, but the others look rather complicated - especially the nine.
Have you tried writing them out quickly to see what happens to them?

yes, i agree .. they are a tad complicated... i've been trying to think of something easier..

I'm working on another draft now. (These are actually quite fun.)

Ok. I more or less totally revamped it here. I made the 0 a classic 0 since it doesn't have any straight lines. And I got the rest of them so they shouldn't take very long to write once you get the hang of them. The 6 however, if written sloppily does become more than a tad phallic--that may offend some. Though I must say, the idea that the phallus can be seen as a bisector between 2 zeros is very funny. (i.e halfway between 0 and 10 is 6)

edit: oops, just realized the 5 and 7 are way too similar.

I think I've made something like this.Tell me what you think.