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> dividing by 2 being far easier than by 10

Really? I struggle to see how dividing any number by two is easier than dividing it by ten, but would like to be enlightened. Divide by ten I just need to mentally move the decimal point, dividing numbers such as 35 or 123 by two requires a lot more mental arithmetic.



It's 1795, and you're a farmer asked to build a ruler based on divide-by-10, or divide-by-2. Anyone with a compass can do the latter; the former is nearly impossible.


Not the number, but the "thing" itself.

It's a snap to fold a piece of paper in half, thirds[0], quarters, sixths, eighths, (etc), but I'm not aware of a trick that lets you divide a sheet into tenths.

[0] Higher powers of three seem tricky too.




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