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The astronaut should’ve told the alien “I use base 22.”
I like the little detail, that the alien has 10 fingers.
The alien in the weird suit has 22 fingers
What do you mean? They have 11
Are you using a 10th base, that does not exist in the comic?
yeah, base 3
Every base is base 10 than except base 1.
All bases should be quoted in Base-1, the basedest of bases
all your base are belong to us
somebody set us up the bomb
Humans use base 0x0A. Beep boop.
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.
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
Yeah I know but base16 creatures would use 10 to express 16 not “G”
What do you mean? X is 10. 1 symbol.
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.
We wouldn’t recognize the aliens symbols for 0-9 at first either.
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.
What do you mean they don’t use A B C D E for 10 11 12 13 13 15?
So we should say base 9+1? Or base ✋🤚 this many.
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
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?
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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.
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.Base 0.
Excuse me but 1+1=2 not 10. Binary is base 2. Check mate.
1+1=10 in binary
Try explain that to non binary people. They won’t get it
That’s not true. In university we did some base-32 calculations just for “fun”. We had to use letters of the alphabet for digits after 9, but that’s no different from what people are used to with hexadecimal numbers.
I was joking. Non binary people have nothing to do with binary numbers. It was a pun. If you are non binary and took that as an insult, I’m very sorry
Oh my bad. I didn’t catch that. 😓
Non binary people have nothing to do with binary numbers
Now hold on there buddy, dont go assuming now! My best friend 01001101 01100001 01110010 01111001 might day otherwise!
The joke “there are 10 kinds of people in the world” exists for a reason.
There are 2 kinds of people in the world : Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data
Extrapolate is a fancy word for pulling something out of ones ass.
I was trying to make a silly dumb joke but it doesn’t seem like it landed :/
I chuckled
Need more JPEG!
Available with less JPEG on the original source (archived).
Every base is base 10.
What about base 0? Checkmate, mathists.
Wouldn’t that be base 1?
it would be ‘what’s a base?’
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.
I personally like base infinity
Agree! I don’t know why other people don’t get how convenient it is to have a distinct character for every single number imaginable.
Single digit numbers always
I think when I first saw this comic, the punchline was “what’s a four?” which I find funnier.
Yes this is the better version that I’ve seen too
Having seen this for the first time, that was my first thought for an improved punchline.
Obligatory Jan misali video:
I only see bleem rocks though. Where are people getting 3 and 4 from?
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.
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.
It’s like language is missing one or two precise words to articulate the idea in better terms
