• TechieDamien@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    3 months ago

    I like the detail that there alien has 4(10) fingers as opposed to the 10(22) that the human has.

  • Wanderer@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    3 months 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.

    • ted@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      3 months ago

      42* years. Centuries are now 84 years. We are living in the 19th century! I rate this idea 12/12.

    • lowleveldata@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      3 months ago

      50 years? I bet we couldn’t even agree on how to write “11” & “12” on such short notice. (See: date format, encoding, etc)

              • drcobaltjedi@programming.dev
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                3 months ago

                Honnest answer, 1/2 in DEC is 0.5 easy. 1/2 in base 13 is .6666666666… Easy but ugly. You want a base that has comon fractions easily represented by decimals. People like dozenal since many fractions are easily represented. 1/2 = 0.6, 1/3 = 0.4, 1/4 = 0.3

                I’m personally a fan of hexidecimal partly because I’m a programmer and partially because it can be halved several times

    • Khrux@ttrpg.network
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      3 months ago

      Some people argue that it would be harder to count on your fingers but we could just surgically give everyone more?

      • Wanderer@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        3 months ago

        There are 12 sections on your fingers (excluding your thumb) you then use your thumb to count to 12 on one hand.

        Two hands can allow you to count to 24. Which is way higher than 10. Base 12 is better!

    • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      3 months ago

      Jesus Christ.

      I just realized that we call binary base2 and there’s no 2 in that numbering system. We call hexadecimal base16 but there’s no 16 (at least not like we know it). But then why is base10 base10? We have a 10…but it’s not a single digit number.

      Why is this reminding me of Project Hail Mary?

      • psud@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        3 months ago

        Every base has ten, but it’s made of two digits

        Binary 0, 1, 10 Ternary 0, 1, 2, 10 … Decimal 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 Hex 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F, 10

        Each has the right count of digits for its base before you go two-digit - binary has two (0, 1), etc

        • Randelung@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          3 months ago

          more precisely, every base has 10, but it’s usually not equal to ten. ten is a fixed value, while 10 depends on the base. you still count normally (one two three four five), even in a base two system. you just write it differently.

          • psud@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            3 months ago

            I don’t see the need to bring values into this, this is about the naming of number systems. We really have no more claim to ten being this many (…) than hexadecimal people have to claim ten has this many (…)

            • Randelung@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              3 months ago

              10 as the first overflow of digits is not a clear vlaue, it depends on the notation because its base is unclear.

              Ten as the English word is 100% defined. The issue is we translate seamlessly between the word and number, but there really is no confusion when writing ten. 10 in hex has a different english word: sixteen.

              English number names are mostly decimal-based, but their values are still fixed. Ten isn’t the word for “the first time our number system overflows”, it’s an amount.

              So I disagree. Ten will always be (…) this many, because it’s an English word.

              • psud@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                2 months ago

                If you are working in a different number system with other people ten loses its unique meaning just like any word that has another technical meaning.

                In code 0x10 is hex 10 (what you’d call sixteen), but in spoken technical English you don’t need to pronounce the 0x