I like the little detail, that the alien has 10 fingers.
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
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.
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
What do you mean they don’t use A B C D E for 10 11 12 13 13 15?
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.
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?
deleted by creator
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.
Need more JPEG!
Available with less JPEG on the original source (archived).
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.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
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
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.
Obligatory Jan misali video:
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
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
If the human was smart he would say that we use base 22. Then everyone would understand.
yeah but to be fair how smart can an astronaut be
Hey everyone! We have this skyscraper sized tank of hydrogen and oxidizer! Who wants to sit on top when we light it on fire?
oh that looks fun! I’ll go!
… what’s an oxidizer?
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.
In Chinese/Japanese, there’s 四 rocks in both base 10, and base 4. (8 rocks would be 二四 in base 4).
I think the concept of “base” is easier to understand when you include a numeral for the highest base (10 = 十, 20 =二十).
Of course, arabic numerals are more concise, using position to imply meaning (21 = 二十一).
Doesn’t base 4 only go up to 三? Like binary is base 2 and only has 0 and 1. 四 would be base 5.
they already said that they have numerals for the base they use. from what I understood, basically imagine we use base 10 but have a numeral for it, let’s say X. our numbers go like this:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, X, X1,X2, X3, X4, X5, X6, X7, X8, X9, 2X, 2X1, 2X2, etc…
so i imagine it’s similarwhen they use base 4:
1, 2, 3, 4, 41, 42, 43, 24, 241, 242, 243, 34…
mind that i have no knowledge on this and I’m only interpreting what i understood from the comment above.
But the extra numeral that you’re representing with X would be base 11. It’s like how hexadecimal uses A-F for 10-15. But the range of numerals still ends at 15 instead of 16 because the 0 exists.
you’re conflating number systems. in this number system the positioning doesn’t assign value. that’s like saying Roman numerals are base 1001 because M.
8 rocks would be 二四 in base 4
ok but what about 16? there’s symbols for powers of 10 but not for powers of 4
