Comments on: number systems of the world

number systems of the world

me3dia — Fri, 22 Nov 2002 14:27:15 -0800

Counting in base-14. "Just because we use a decimal system doesn't mean everyone does. "The teseradecimal lifestyle is thus not just a way of life. It is not only a method of regulating marriage, birth, succession, and other aspects of village life. It is also a theory of history where genesis, finality, and apocalypse are laid out on the space between the pinky and the nose."
Alex Golub illuminates the counting system of the Ipili tribe of Papua New Guinea, in response to much discussion of the ethnomathmatics at Leuschke.org. [more inside]

By: me3dia

me3dia — Fri, 22 Nov 2002 14:27:44 -0800

Further browsing: + Numbering Systems Around the World + The Development of Counting Systems and Notations + The Abacus In Various Number Systems + Introduction to the Binary and Other Number Systems (in braille) + More on number systems from Eduscape

By: me3dia

me3dia — Fri, 22 Nov 2002 14:28:58 -0800

(To clarify, that fourth link isn't in braille, it's about braille.)

By: Pretty_Generic

Pretty_Generic — Fri, 22 Nov 2002 14:33:30 -0800

More websites should be in braille.

By: four panels

four panels — Fri, 22 Nov 2002 14:40:06 -0800

There was an interesting article recently at kuro5hin.org.

By: me3dia

me3dia — Fri, 22 Nov 2002 14:41:50 -0800

Ask and you shall receive: + Sites of Interest to Blind and Visually Impaired People + Blindness Resource Center

By: Espoo2

Espoo2 — Fri, 22 Nov 2002 14:45:50 -0800

thank you, me3dia, that (FPP) was a very interesting read. Something tells me their prophecy will come true, unfortunately.

By: mikrophon

mikrophon — Fri, 22 Nov 2002 14:54:35 -0800

Great article. Thanks. I still remember when I learned in elementary school that the decimal system was not the only way to count . . . I think it came when I first started learning time signatures in music. And everyone knows that 7/8 is the best.

By: twine42

twine42 — Fri, 22 Nov 2002 15:31:24 -0800

I can't help wondering how many groups learnt to count in base 16. It's the kind of thing I'd expect the Greeks (or the like) to have done...

By: Pretty_Generic

Pretty_Generic — Fri, 22 Nov 2002 15:43:38 -0800

twine42 - why are some bases better than others? Apart from the fact that all your base are belong to us.

By: four panels

four panels — Fri, 22 Nov 2002 16:19:19 -0800

why are some bases better than others? Divisibility. Closely related to kissability.

By: four panels

four panels — Fri, 22 Nov 2002 16:21:26 -0800

Some bases' mothers are bigger than other bases' mothers.

By: signal

signal — Fri, 22 Nov 2002 16:52:30 -0800

the whole thing about wether or not some cultures could count past 2 reminded me of Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age": "There's only zero of you,' said the Queen of the Ants (to the King of the Shrews). In ant arithmetic, there are only two numbers: Zero, which means anything less than a million, and Some. 'You can't cooperate, so even if you were King, the title would be meaningless.'"

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Fri, 22 Nov 2002 17:10:42 -0800

Using base 14 is immoral...

By: Danelope

Danelope — Fri, 22 Nov 2002 17:24:50 -0800

Yes, but how does the Ipili tribe of Papua New Guinea feel about semen?

By: drezdn

drezdn — Fri, 22 Nov 2002 18:12:35 -0800

"There's only zero of you,' said the Queen of the Ants (to the King of the Shrews). In ant arithmetic, there are only two numbers: Zero, which means anything less than a million, and Some. 'You can't cooperate, so even if you were King, the title would be meaningless.'" And your comment reminded me of Watership Down, where rabbits count anything fiver or greater as a thousand.

By: Orange Goblin

Orange Goblin — Fri, 22 Nov 2002 18:53:23 -0800

And that reminded me of Terry Pratchett's trolls, who count 'one, two, many, lots'...

By: sophist

sophist — Fri, 22 Nov 2002 19:04:25 -0800

I always liked a base 8 system. Breaks down nice and evenly into 2s and 4s(2x2s). 16 is nice because you can get higher numbers without so many decimal places, but then the question is, what are your new numbers going to look like? 10 is a horrible base because of the 5 factor, a very ugly number. Is it too late to change? I think patterns in the world around us would become much more recognizable with a sensible base system that we actually applied to things. Our time system, for instance, is all messed up because we tried to stuff a base 6 system into a base 10 numbering scheme. And dont even get me started on the metric system vs evil inches.

By: i_am_joe's_spleen

i_am_joe's_spleen — Fri, 22 Nov 2002 19:56:29 -0800

Base 12 has a lot going for it. 2, 3, 4 and 6 all divide evenly into it. There are some traces of a duodecimal system in English, where we have the concept of "dozen", "gross", the old Anglo Saxon long hundred of 120, and "eleven" and "twelve" rather than oneteen and twoteen. The Ipili prophet's words filled me with horror. Finally, the mine would come and dig up their sacred mountain, the mountain beneath which their totemic ancestor, the python Kupiane slept. It was only when the mountain was dug out and Kupiane had fled (ingesia - 14) that the end of the traditional counting system, and hence the Ipili conception of time would end. It's coming true. Bummer.

By: dhartung

dhartung — Fri, 22 Nov 2002 20:05:53 -0800

I've often wondered what it would be like to have a seemingly basic, immutable thing about your world this much different -- such as the different ways some cultures divide up the colors.

By: johnnyace

johnnyace — Sat, 23 Nov 2002 02:44:08 -0800

"There are only 10 kinds of people in this world; those who read binary, and those who don't."

By: Mars Saxman

Mars Saxman — Sat, 23 Nov 2002 09:46:25 -0800

16 is nice because you can get higher numbers without so many decimal places, but then the question is, what are your new numbers going to look like? You use A through F, of course - any programmer can tell you that. Base 16 is a very nice system; it's easy to work with and fits perfectly inside Base 2. Base 8 was abandoned years ago, probably because its 3-bit-wide digits don't fit well into bytes. I used to expect that after enough years of working in base-16 it would start to seem normal to me, and base-10 the oddity, but it really hasn't worked that way. I still think about the real world in base-10, and only inside the machine does base-16 seem natural. This suggests that either I learn more slowly than I like to believe, or that one's numbering system is like a native language, something you learn as a child and never forget.