Powers of Ten

[Eric is God]

Originally posted by ConcreteSchlyrd
You're all discounting the fact that the Babylonians were using a primarily base 60 system long before base 10 became the norm.

But 60 is a multiple of 10 which still makes the basis of math in human development dependant on our digits.

[ÆNIMA]

But you could also argue that 6 is the base of that system, or 2 even.

[ConcreteSchlyrd]

Originally posted by Eric is God
But 60 is a multiple of 10 which still makes the basis of math in human development dependant on our digits.

They don't call it base 60 for nothing. Otherwise, they'd just call it a derivation of base 10.

[sTuPiD-gErBiL]

i like basing

[King Missile]

Originally posted by sTuPiD-gErBiL
i like basing

ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL AKA lol

[Epinephrine]

Originally posted by ÆNIMA
You must've read Footfall by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.

In that book there was an attacking race of aliens that looked a lot like baby elephants, except with more trunks. And at the end of their trunks they had 8 digits, which were like fingers to us.

And all throughout the book they referenced quantities to multiples of 8. The reason they counted by 8's was because of their 8 digits, we have 10 fingers...we think best in multiples of ten.

Footfall's a really good invasion novel, a good read for SciFi lovers.

Telcat, think logically here. Why would you gather other people to do your counting for you, when you could just use rocks?

Which brings me to something else a little interesting, in latin...the word for rock is "calculi" and in certain cases "calculus"....coincedence?

I really doubt from his description that Eric read Footfall which had absolutely nothing to do with spider or amphibious aliens.

But omg another person out there has read Footfall! Damn I loved that book. I remember right after I read it, the movie Independence Day came out.. from the trailers I was hoping it would be something like the book, sadly it was just a crappy movie, abeit cool movie.

Footfall is for sure the best and most realistic invasion sci-fi book I've ever read in my life.

-Epi

[Eric is God]

Yes it wasnt Footfall Epi, I believe it was called "Designing God" or seomthing. The book actually took place mainly in Toronto and the central character was an anthropologist from the museum of natural history downtown. Decent book, a friend noticed that all I read was fantasy (Dragonlance and Sword of Truth mainly) and recommended it.

[Suicide Fish]

Back when I was in uni my math professor always insisted that base 10 was dumb and base 12 is a far more natural and easy to work with format for humans.

I think he was insane personally.

[sir bracco]

holy fuck look at all this shit u ppl know and look at what ur doing with ur time!

(i know all types of shit aboput the physics of star wars so i have the right to play a 2d SPACE SHIP game.) seriously ppl this is just over whelming that u guys know all this and yet spend so much time just wasting it on ppl like scout1 and even me! i mean y r u all here? i mean i think ur all cool but im here to blow off steam from school!

[EternalEntropy]

There was a french man born with 12 fingers, he counted through base 12. Whatever base you grew up learning, that is the base you think is natural and anything else would be stupid. It is subjective to the person but mathematically they are all equivalent in value.

[geekbot]

Ok, I just wrote this long post on why I didn't think it was possible that the French man learned to count in base 12 but then I figured out how he could.

When we count in base 10, we count the ones digit on our hands and hold the tens digit in our head. E.g. you count 1-10, remember that you passed 10, and start over on your fingers with 11-20.

This is made easier by the fact that our number names are base ten. For example, you would count twenty-one, twenty-two and thirty-one, thirty-two on the same fingers as one and two.

Our twelve-fingered, french man friend, instead of holding the tens digit in his head (10-20-30), would hold twelves (12-24-36) and count 1-12 on his fingers. He would probably still say vingt-duex, vingt-trois but they wouldn't be counted on the same fingers as duex and trois because he works in 12's. He would still have to write and speak in base 10 but he would know multiples of 12 very well (as well as mod 12: 12+1, 24+1, 36+1, etc).

Anyway, any engineer knows that base 16 (hex) is best of all.

[Epinephrine]

Originally posted by geekbot
Anyway, any engineer knows that base 16 (hex) is best of all.

Why did the computer scientist (or maybe engineer) confuse halloween and christmas?












Because DEC25 = OCT31!

-Epi

[bloodzombie]

Originally posted by Epinephrine











Because DEC25 = OCT31!

-Epi

I GET JOKES!!!









































Just not this one.

[TelC@t]

Dec25 = decimal based 25 = 2 x 10 + 5 = 25

Oct31 = Oct (8) based 31 = 3 x 8 + 1 = 25 (decimal based)





Doh, 2 is the best base for everything. Computer science is based on this, so are many engineering applications.

Hex (16) and Oct (8) are just some power of 2, thus they are based on the Binary (2) system in some sense.

New discovery today by myself ... the extra benefits of using Binary system include that fact that we have 2 hands ... say left hand represent 0, and right hand represent 1.

01 01 01 01 01 01 01



Kz, got to get back to my study for this afternoon's exam. If I failure this course I would lose my scholarship ... :/

[EternalEntropy]

Originally posted by TelC@t
Dec25 = decimal based 25 = 2 x 10 + 5 = 25

Oct31 = Oct (8) based 31 = 3 x 8 + 1 = 25 (decimal based)





Doh, 2 is the best base for everything. Computer science is based on this, so are many engineering applications.

Hex (16) and Oct (8) are just some power of 2, thus they are based on the Binary (2) system in some sense.

New discovery today by myself ... the extra benefits of using Binary system include that fact that we have 2 hands ... say left hand represent 0, and right hand represent 1.

01 01 01 01 01 01 01



Kz, got to get back to my study for this afternoon's exam. If I failure this course I would lose my scholarship ... :/

Base 2 is not the best for everything, its too long. Its good for logic and digital logic (binary math) and all that. In many cases hex is used instead of binary in computers because you can store the same number in 1/4 of the space.
1010 1001 1111 0101 = A9F5