Science Memes

10963 readers

2165 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.

Rules

Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
Keep it rooted (on topic).
No spam.
Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.

Research Committee

[email protected]

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

1186

Every base is base 10 (lemmy.world)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

196 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (4 children)

Why not?

Why not use a large prime as the base?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Is 1/2 in base 13 not 0.65?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

No, because the 5 in your answer is thinking in decimal. 0.05 is not the half of 0.1 in base 13.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

it's almost like you'd have to use a different notation system to express a different base...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Ahh yes, let’s introduce floating point rounding errors for one half. Sounds fun.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Why use a fixed base? Or why not use an irrational number like e, the most efficient base

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I still think some largish prime, like 37 hits the perfect spot of being usable enough for people to use, but still useless enough to stop almost everybody from learning any advanced math.

But yeah, making integers non-representable is a serious trade-off that deserves consideration.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Lets use base Pi and put an end to that infinite digit bullshit.