• lefixxx@lemmy.world
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    23 hours ago

    It’s a language issue. We say 10 because we don’t have a single digit symbol to represent 10. If a alien with 20 fingers came we wouldn’t recognized their symbols for anything bigger than 9. Base 4 creatures don’t use 4 because after 3 comes 10 for them.

    • SinAdjetivos@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      Base 16 is used all the time in computer science. The symbols for 9+ aren’t arcane or unrecognizable it’s 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F. It’s often written with an 0X in front to indicate hexadecimal or something like 'h for hex and 'd for decimal.

      Examples:

      • 'h7 = 'd7
      • 'hC = 'd12
      • 'hF = 'd15
      • 'h7CF = 'd(7 × 162) + (12 × 161) + (15 × 160) = 'd1792 + 'd192 + 'd15 = 'd1999
      • lefixxx@lemmy.world
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        17 hours ago

        Considering this, for us humans base-10 is base-X

        For the four fingered aliens base-10 is base-4. But they don’t call it base 4 because they don’t use 4 like we don’t use X. They say base-10 because for their language it’s how they say 4. And that applies for all bases.

      • AppleTea@lemmy.zip
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        21 hours ago

        should interstellar contact ever actually happen, maths would be the first (and for a long while, probably the only) thing we’d actually be able to communicate in.

      • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
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        16 hours ago

        Hey mathematicians, is this a good universal way to communicate number bases? I think y’all would call it 1111111111₁ or something like that

        Fun tangent, on my hands that would be 1023 because I count in binary on my fingers

    • namelivia@lemmy.world
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      19 hours ago

      Actually, I saw this meme before and I didn’t notice the alien has four fingers. Do we use base 10 because we have that number of fingers??? Is there really a proof of that?

      • jpeps@lemmy.world
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        19 hours ago

        It’s a good reason for us to use base 10, but in the past many people have not used base 10. However, the bases a society use often are somehow tied to something about the body. As an example (haven’t looked it up for a while, sorry), I think there is/was a group that used base 8, and counted on the gaps between their fingers.

  • nonentity@sh.itjust.works
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    1 day ago

    Every number system is base 10.

    Binary is base 1+1.
    Ternary is base 2+1.
    Octal is base 7+1.
    Decimal is base 9+1.
    Duodecimal is base B+1.
    Hexadecimal is base F+1.

      • ameancow@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        I think it’s saying you can factor out the zero because it’s zero and we’re looking for “base sets” which for us 1’s? Factoring every number system down to whatever their base set is equivalent to that original 1’s relationship with zero?

        It seems a little more esoteric than the practical reality that an alien might just count on it’s digits which could be any base number, and we should understand that, particularly if it gets so bad on Earth we have to leave soon.

        I haven’t taken math in a very long time.

    • wavebeam@lemmy.world
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      21 hours ago

      i only recognize bleem as two possible things. dropout.tv’s Brennan Lee Mulligan or the company that emulated playstation games on the dreamcast, got sue by sony and won, setting the precedent that emulation is a legal process, but folded under the weight of the lawsuit anyway.

  • lefixxx@lemmy.world
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    23 hours ago

    Doesn’t matter how many digits you use. The first number after the last possible single digit is 10. If the first digit tier is 0 and the second is 1 it means it’s the number after you have used all the possible digits to express a number with a single digit number. Guess it’s harder to explain.

    • Noodle07@lemmy.world
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      23 hours ago

      It’s like language is missing one or two precise words to articulate the idea in better terms

  • ch00f@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    I think when I first saw this comic, the punchline was “what’s a four?” which I find funnier.

  • ragas@lemmy.ml
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    1 day ago

    If the human was smart he would say that we use base 22. Then everyone would understand.