For as long as they have existed, Lego people have had only two fingers on each hand. Take a look at this photo, showing minifigs discovering the curse.

Two fingers were okay for holding objects and steering a car, but they wanted more... they wanted to COUNT!

Now for the 'cure'.

The problem is that when we count with our fingers, we number them 1,2,3,4 , as shown in the first picture on the right. However, suppose that we number them 1,2,4,8, as shown in the second picture. Now we can count up to eight - or can we. What about 3,5,6 and 7? Don't we have a problem?

Hold out your hands in front of you, looking at your palms. Now close them up, to make a fist. If you think about, each of your fingers has two positions, open and closed. The same is true of a minifig, each finger can be open or closed, down or up.

Now for the clever part. The sequencing of numbers 1,2,4,8, enable you to count every number up to 15, by opening and closing each of the fingers in different combinations. Have a look at this diagram below. To make it easier to see, I have included coloured dots over the Lego hands.

You may notice something else as well. The word 'Binary'. This basically refers to this method of counting. This is computer code - binary code!

You can do the same with your hands as well. If you number each of fingers in turn 1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512 (each number is the double of the previous number), you can count up to 1023. Wow!

For more information on binary, have a look here.