Can we all use base 12?
It will be a shower if shit for like 50 years but then it will be better for pretty much everyone.
Every base is base 10
Submitted 5 months ago by realitista@lemmy.world to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/98b0f898-010f-43a6-9a4c-5c802d516a1b.jpeg
Comments
Wanderer@lemm.ee 5 months ago
ted@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
42* years. Centuries are now 84 years. We are living in the 19th century! I rate this idea 12/12.
starman2112@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
I rate it A/10, it’s a really efficient numbering system but I personally will have a really hard time adjusting
lowleveldata@programming.dev 5 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)
exocrinous@startrek.website 5 months ago
Well we write 12 like this: 10
It’s way y
problematicPanther@lemmy.world 5 months ago
we could just go with the hexidecimal way and go with A,B,C for 10,11 and 12
AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.world 5 months ago
The current standard seems to be an upside down 2 and 3
Khrux@ttrpg.network 5 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 5 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!
Cethin@lemmy.zip 5 months ago
Binary is very good for counting with your fingers. With both hands you can count to 1023. One hand is 31, which is still usually more than you typically need to count.
rockerface@lemm.ee 5 months ago
When was the last time you’ve actually needed to count something on your fingers?
frezik@midwest.social 5 months ago
Billions of years ago, our collective great-great-great-[several million more]-grandparent evolved a fin with a five bone structure. That idiot didn’t know anything about common denominators, and now we’re stuck with this numeric system that can’t divide things into thirds without causing issues.
NafiTheBear@pawb.social 5 months ago
This would be great. I was researching why we don’t have 10 based clocks and then I saw a video about why a 12 and 60 based system is actually much more convenient and now I would love a ‘dozen based metric system’
Daft_ish@lemmy.world 5 months ago
50 years? We can’t even switch to metric.
Wanderer@lemm.ee 5 months ago
Every civilised country on earth uses metric.
Only the really shitty ones use imperial. Imperial is just stupid (unless you count in base 12 ironically)
FreeFacts@sopuli.xyz 5 months ago
Why base 12 though? Base 16 is even better. And base 60 is even better than that!
frezik@midwest.social 5 months ago
Common denominators. You can divide base 12 into half, thirds, fourths, and sixths and still use integers. I find thirds to be particularly useful, so base 16 is out. Base 60 can do it, but that’s getting unweildly.
KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
nah we should use binary, anything else is cringe.
problematicPanther@lemmy.world 5 months ago
so, 60 years in base 10
JackRiddle@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Or better yet, base 6?
Xanthrax@lemmy.world 5 months ago
That’s Acadian, right? It was originally based on the number of easy to count bones in your fingers (12-24)
Tramdan@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
There are 10 types of people: Those who understand binary and those who don’t.
WolfLink@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
And those who didn’t expect the joke to be in base 3
BlueKey@kbin.run 5 months ago
You forgot the ones who expected it to be in base 4.
Underwaterbob@lemm.ee 5 months ago
I like that the alien has 4 fingers. Fitting!
storcholus@feddit.de 5 months ago
It’s 10 fingers. Just keep your freaky 11 finger hands of this serious discussion
Aceticon@lemmy.world 5 months ago
There are only 10 ways of doing things: the right way and the wrong way. (Programming joke)
bi_tux@lemmy.world 5 months ago
There are actually 00000000000000000000000000000010 ways of doing things (in most languages)
Hotzilla@sopuli.xyz 5 months ago
Will only if your language is 1-index based, yuck
s_s@lemmy.one 5 months ago
ech@lemm.ee 5 months 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.
niartenyaw@midwest.social 5 months ago
we’d only be able to represent x 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.ee 5 months 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).
harmsy@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Base 16 is typically represented with letters being used as the extra numerals, so it would end up being F+1. Problem solved.
KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
wait until you find out about hex. It turns out we already have words for referring to numbers lol.
Mango@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I use base 8+1. What is 9?
gex@lemmy.world 5 months ago
What about Roman numerals?
ech@lemm.ee 5 months 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 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.
kelargo@lemmy.world 5 months ago
All your base belong to us
el_abuelo@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
Not to be that guy - just to make sure you nail it perfectly next time - it’s “all your base are belong to us”
cholesterol@lemmy.world 5 months ago
NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de 5 months ago
Octal is base 8. Decimal is base A. Hexadecimal is base G. Any questions?
JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 5 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 5 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
efstajas@lemmy.world 5 months ago
It’s because we count the 0… no? 0 and 1, base 2. 0123456789, base 10.
FiskFisk33@startrek.website 5 months ago
because then every base would be ‘base 10’
That or the decriarchy has been normalizing the decimal counting system as the default one for far too long!
starman2112@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
(There is no 10 in base-10, which is why we construct it out of two other numbers)
PanoptiDon@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Love that book!
intensely_human@lemm.ee 5 months ago
What is this “8” you refer to? Here in the land of people without thumbs, 10 comes after 7.
NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de 5 months ago
If you have a problem with that you must also have a problem with the other two
stebo02@sopuli.xyz 5 months ago
What about unniftimal? (Base 37)
NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de 5 months ago
If there’s no agreed symbol for digit 37, you can call it Base 37~A~ (or express it in another base of your choosing).
In case the formatting doesn’t work, that A is supposed to be subscript
lseif@sopuli.xyz 5 months ago
every unsigned system is base -1 …or maybe -1+1
DarkCloud@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I get this comic which is about translation errors.
Comments are wildly off …
…BASE!
JackbyDev@programming.dev 5 months ago
Clearly the human uses base 22.
DarkCloud@lemmy.world 5 months ago
That’s very clever. Maths checks out.
LeFrog@discuss.tchncs.de 5 months 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.
So the (decimal) number 4 in base 4 is then
1×4¹ + 0×4^0 = 10And (decimal) number 8 in base 8 is
1×8¹ + 0×8^0 = 10And 10 in base 10:
1×10¹ + 0×10^0 = 10Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Which is why to write hexadecimal, we added letters to it, because there isn’t a digit for “12”.
ssj2marx@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
You gotta tell the alien that you use base-22
C126@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Base 20. 1,2,3,4,10,11,12,13,14,20
ssj2marx@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
pretty sure base 4 goes “1, 2, 3, 10”
Randelung@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Only when written, which is the whole point of notation. “Ten” is still a fixed amount, and so is four.
Dicska@lemmy.world 5 months 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” could be twenty two, twoty two, dbgluqboq, or Janet. But similarly to how we don’t have a single syllable, dedicated number name for 22 (decimal), they may not have a single syllable, dedicated number name for 10 (decimal, which is 22 in base 4).
KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months 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.
Dusktracer@lemmy.world 5 months ago
10 is actually only 2. The number of people misunderstanding binary here is mind blowing xD.
rainerloeten@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Not sure of you’re trolling or not…
anas@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Took me a moment
SuddenDownpour@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
This one took me a bit.
s_s@lemmy.one 5 months ago
Looks like 0100 rocks to me
TIMMAY@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Fuck I am so lost
shikogo@pawb.social 5 months ago
The most reliable way to communicate bases would probably be using unary. Now if your alien is using unary, that might not work, but it should for all higher bases.
niktemadur@lemmy.world 5 months ago
“2.5, 5, 7.5, TEN! See?”
billwashere@lemmy.world 5 months ago
🤯
orphiebaby@lemmy.cafe 5 months ago
- This is why I say “10” is not a number, it just means one big group and zero remainder.
- I am a huuuuge proponent of dozenal (base-12)
Lotarion@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I remember someone trying to come up with a solution to this by generating a name for every single base, dunno if they’ve succeeded or not tho
WholeEnchilada@lemmy.today 5 months ago
This cartoon is complete. Suck my cock all the way down to the base is the end.
lugal@sopuli.xyz 5 months ago
Plot twist: there are 8 other stones and the alien is really using base 10 (or base 30 if you use base 4)
KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
every base is not base ten, and i will fight you on this one.
binary is base two, or as i like to refer to it, the power of 2 base.
unreasonabro@lemmy.world 5 months ago
not base 100
kelargo@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Thanks. I realized the typo after I saved. Oh well.
TechieDamien@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
I like the detail that there alien has 4(10) fingers as opposed to the 10(22) that the human has.
AtariDump@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Now I get the joke.
Thanks!