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 object to appear in the left fist after previously showing it empty. The right hand approaches the left and after a brief pause pulls out the silk handkerchief bit by bit from the fist. These appearances and disappearances are achieved by a small flesh-colored imitation thumb tip, usually made of plastic, rubber or painted metal, which fits loosely over the thumb. Space exists between the thumb and the tip into which a small object can be concealed. For the vanish, the tip is already in the left fist. The handkerchief or cigarette is pressed into the tip with the fingers