16 (number) old days, weighing was done with a beam balance to make equal splits. It would be easier to split a heap of grains into sixteen equal parts through successive divisions than to split into ten parts. Chinese Taoists did finger computation on the trigrams and hexagrams by counting the finger tips and joints of the fingers with the tip of the thumb. Each hand can count up to 16 in such manner. The Chinese abacus uses two upper beads to represent the 5s and 5 lower beads to represent the 1s, the 7 beads can represent a hexadecimal digit from
Thumb tip is achieved in a similar manner, but this time, the tip begins on the right thumb with the object already inside. To avoid detection, the tip may be kept down behind the right hand, or it may be pointed directly at the audience while the hand is in motion; done properly, it appears as though the right hand is empty. The left hand is openly shown to be empty, and is made into a fist. The right thumb is inserted into the left fist, while simultaneously the thumb and right fingers pull the concealed object out of the tip, which