16 (sixteen) is thenatural number following15 and preceding17. It is thefourthpower of two. In English speech, the numbers 16 and60 are sometimes confused, as they sound similar.
16 is the ninthcomposite number, and asquare number:42 = 4 × 4 (the first non-unitary fourth-powerprime of the formp4). It is the smallest number with exactly fivedivisors, its proper divisors being1,2,4 and8.
A lowpower of two, 16 was used in weighing light objects in several cultures. Early civilizations utilized theweighing scale as a means to measure mass, which made splitting resources into equal parts a simple task.[4][5] In theimperial system, 16ounces equivalates to onepound. Until theState Council of the People's Republic of China decreed a decimal conversion for currency in 1959,[6] China equivalated 16liǎng to onejīn. 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 0 to 15 in each column.
A "sweet sixteen" is celebrated by many sixteen-year-old girls in the United States and Canada. It is acoming-of-age celebration thattraditionally marks a girl's transition into womanhood.
In the United States and Canada, 16 is the most commonage of sexual consent, as well as the age in the United Kingdom andseveral European countries.[7][8] Sixteen is also the minimum age for being allowed a beginner'sdriver's license with parental consent in many US states and in Canada.
^Morley, Iain; Renfrew, Colin (2010).The Archaeology of Measurement: Comprehending Heaven, Earth and Time in Ancient Societies. Cambridge University Press. pp. 88–105.ISBN9780511760822.
