Question One: What?

This is a good question. Many people are unfamiliar with alternate number systems. So, before we dive in, let us discuss what Base 6 means, as well as other systems.

Most people are aware of the decimal, or "base 10," system means. This simply that means that there are 10 digits available to use (those being, obviously, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9), and that each sequential number to the left (I know there is a better term for this, but I cannot remember) is a multiple of 10 (thus, 42 really means four tens added to two ones).

Clear as mud? OK, lets continue onto what base six is.

Base six contains, quite obviously, six digits, those being 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. This thus means that every column to the left is a multiple of 6. 42 in this system does not mean four tens and two ones. It instead means four sixes and two ones. Let's take a look at the basic multiplication table for single-digit numbers.

Question Two: Why?

While I cannot answer this question in the best of ways, I can point you to the creator jan Misali, who has produced two videos that are, in my opinion, excellent learning resources, and provide an introduction and reasoning as two why this is a better numerical system.

However, one must be pragmatic, and recognize that this system would never be adopted by any nation in the world today. The decimal system is at the core of the metric system, and a change would cause a lot of things to go wrong.

It is fun to imagine, though, which I believe is the main point of using this system.

Further information

• seximal.net, an excellent resource on discovering information about this system.
• Senary on Wikipedia, another source, although it lists it under a different name (seximal is relegated to an alternate name)
• The original video about seximal