• Wanderer@lemm.eeEnglish
    824·
    2 years ago

    Can we all use base 12?

    It will be a shower of shit for like 50 years but then it will be marginally better for pretty much everyone.

  • Aceticon@lemmy.worldEnglish
    40·
    2 years ago

    There are only 10 ways of doing things: the right way and the wrong way. (Programming joke)

    • bi_tux@lemmy.worldEnglish
      15·
      2 years ago

      There are actually 00000000000000000000000000000010 ways of doing things (in most languages)

  • Ech@lemm.eeEnglish
    382·
    2 years ago

    Huh, that’s a good point. A better universal naming system would be something like “Base x+1”, with x being one integer lower than 10. So humans would use Base 9+1, and the alien would use Base 3+1.

    *This has been on my mind all day and the more I think about it, the more obvious it becomes how fundamentally terrible the name “Base-10” is. How did this never occur to the people who coined the term? Even the system I suggested is flawed as it’s still trying to incorporate the same bad logic.

    A better system would be something like Base 9, stopping shy of the respective 10 in each system, or if it needs to be clarified, Base 9+0, as 0 is the extra digit in the first place, not 10.

    • niartenyaw@midwest.socialEnglish
      191·
      2 years ago

      we’d only be able to represent bases for numbers with one digit though because what does base 15+1 mean? the 15 could be in any base higher than 5. the clearest way would probably be to just represent it with lines or something “base ||||||||||”

      • Ech@lemm.eeEnglish
        13·
        2 years ago

        It’s only 15 to us because we use base 10 (or 9+1). Like how we have 4 through 9, but that aliens in the picture only count up to 3.

        In the case of a mismatch, the culture using the higher base would just translate down (Base 21+1 in the given scenario).

        Single units would probably be the simplest method, but also wildly impractical as the base gets higher. You really want to count each digit just to figure out someone uses Base 100?

      • harmsy@lemmy.worldEnglish
        13·
        2 years ago

        Base 16 is typically represented with letters being used as the extra numerals, so it would end up being F+1. Problem solved.

        • niartenyaw@midwest.socialEnglish
          3·
          2 years ago

          i know about hexadecimal, but what if you need to refer to a base larger than 16? i’m not saying it isn’t possible to create symbols for every number, i’m saying if you have to describe your base with more than one digit, you encounter a problem of not knowing what base that multi-digit number is in.

          • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.comBannedEnglish
            1·
            2 years ago

            well no, i know, i’m just saying that’s it’s not really that big of a problem, unless you’re using octal, and you skill issue.

            You should design base systems to be independent of each other, and hex does a really good job at this, because often times it’s prepended with 0x to imply hex.

      • Ech@lemm.eeEnglish
        2·
        2 years ago

        I think that would confuse things more than it would help. It’s base 5, unless it’s base 10, unless it’s base 50, etc. And then there’s the rules designating numbers 1 below certain other numbers, or 2 below, depending on the system being used. That’s a whole web of complications when communication is already murky.

        One glyph to one integer communicates the number system being used more clearly.

  • LeFrog@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    25·
    2 years ago

    Wow I never thought about that.

    But it is always like this:

    let there be any base "b"
That can represent a number by the sum of their positional digits:

number = sum(d_i * b ^ i)
   where i is the position index and d_i is the digit at this position. (note: index starts with 0, from the least digit farthest to the right)

    So the (decimal) number 4 in base 4 is then

    1×4¹ + 0×4^0 = 10

    And (decimal) number 8 in base 8 is

    1×8¹ + 0×8^0 = 10

    And 10 in base 10:

    1×10¹ + 0×10^0 = 10
  • Randelung@lemmy.worldEnglish
    221·
    2 years ago

    Only when written, which is the whole point of notation. “Ten” is still a fixed amount, and so is four.

    • Dicska@lemmy.worldEnglish
      122·
      2 years ago

      “ten” is a fixed amount in base 10. A base 4 user may have an entirely different naming system for numbers above 3, so “ten” (which is written as 22 in base 4) could be twenty two, twoty two, dbgluqboq, or Janet. But similarly to how we don’t have a single syllable, dedicated number name for decimal 22 (as in, it’s composed of the number names ‘twenty’ and ‘two’), they may not have a single syllable, dedicated number name for decimal 10 (which is ‘22’ in base 4).

      • Randelung@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        2 years ago

        No, ten is a fixed amount in English. It has roots in base ten, but we also have eleven and twelve from other bases. (also dozen, gross, score.) In English there is no ambiguity when it comes to what number the word ten represents.

        • Dicska@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          2 years ago

          I never argued that. I wasn’t even talking about the word ‘ten’ in English but the usefulness of the word ‘ten’ in base 4.

          EDIT: I see where you’re coming from: base 10 English also has a unique name for something that is not 0-9 or a power of 10 - however, the only reason to this is that they are from base 12. Obviously base 12 has unique words for numbers below the base. But not numbers above it (apart from maybe powers of 12). Which further proves the point.

          • Randelung@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            2 years ago

            My point is the difference between number system and language. We’re seamlessly converting back and forth while writing this, but there’s a specific amount in our heads that we’re trying to communicate, either by word or by number. The number is ambiguous only if you don’t know the base, while the word is ambiguous only if you don’t know the language. The meme is - presumably - in English, and they’re talking (in speech bubble form), so the misunderstanding doesn’t really happen. it’s only when a secondary ‘language’ is introduced - the numbers - that it is possible.

            Ten in particular, which we usually write as a two digit number because of historical and biological context, still uniquely describes a certain amount without any relation to it being written as the first two digit number. In any language, you wouldn’t translate to one two three ten just because they usually write in base four, you’d translate to whatever their word for the number is that you’re trying to translate.

    • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.comBannedEnglish
      31·
      2 years ago

      even when written out non base ten systems, are still possible to be non base ten.

      It’s only base ten when you convert from one base system to another. We are merely referencing between two base systems when we say that 4 bits is “16” because there are 16 possible options there. 16 is just our conceptualized version and conversion of that base system, in ours. You can read binary as if it’s just powers of 2, it’s incredibly trivial.

      octal and hex are the best example of this, because octal skips numbers while counting. Hex introduces letters. Neither of which fly even remotely sanely through base ten. Unless you’re converting.