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[Kyle]

What do you think of the BASE 10 Number System?
Would you prefer a different 'international standard'?
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[Xander]

Base 10 is as good as any other base, if not better...
after all, we have 10 fingers - easier to count it out, no?
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(ENTP)

[Chaotic Order]

I believe that base 10 is the easiest to use because we all do have 10 fingers (most of us anyway ) and humans did count on their fingers before the numerical system was invented; for that reason base 10 is common
while I think that if we were taught to use a different system from our birth, we would have been just as used to it as we are to this system, there is no reason to change something that works well
if we use a different base, then new numbers would have to be added or existing ones taken out
as an example, trying counting in binary - you will get long strings of numbers that are hard to memorize
if you go to a base 20, then you will have too many numbers to have to remember the significance of
in general, the most efficient/easy-to-use system would contain between 8-12 symbols - not too much to remember, not too long to write out
and as it stands, I think it's best to stay with the existing standard, since going to a new one would only cause confusion, while not really making any significant improvement to the efficency of anything that involves numbers
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[ENTP@INTP]

Base 2 is too small, leading to too long written numbers. Calculations with small numbers using fingers would be fairly easy, one hand can be represent numbers 0 - 31, two hands up to 1023. Multiplication table is as simple as it can be. We would probably use different base (hexadecimal numbers) for archiving numeric data.

Base 6 is probably still too small to be practical. Numbers divisible by 2 or 3 or 6 would be instantly recognizable. We would calculate to five with our fingers and then rotate our wrist (or do something like that) to calculate to six using one hand. Multiplication table would be very easy to learn and remember.

Base 12 would be practical. Numbers divisible by 2, 3, 4, 6 or 12 would be instantly recognizable. We would rotate our both wrists to calculate to 12 using our hands. Learning the multiplication table would be still be fairly easy, but early maths dropout children would be more common. Mental arithmetic would be little more error prone than in base 10.

Base 30 and base 60 are too large to be really competitive.

I would say that base 10 is a good compromise, considering the mathematical abilities of average people. If we normally had 12 fingers, we would need (and maybe have?) better maths abilities.
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ENTP sCUx|I| aspie married to an ISTJ

[Kyle]

The beauty of a computer, is that is runs in binary (BASE 2).... It opens up a whole new way to doing math too.
8 and 16 are good simply because they are products of 2, and it still allows many of the BASE 2 math rules to be applied.

256 is much more important than the number 300.

I think the ability to float between BASE 10 and BASE 16, being able to use both of them, just as easy, would be quite helpful. I kinda think of base 10 as the "Stupid People's Number System" though...

0-----1-----2-----4-----8----16----32----64----128----256--
0-----1-----2-------------10----20-304050----100----200--

Sure number 10 is important, 50, and 100... But a lot of the other ones are fairly unimportant in the 'grand scheme' of things... Powers of 2 are everywhere.
Plus...BASE 10 only works good with BASE 10...

Imagine how our technology/society could have evolved differently, simply by being a civilization having a dominant BASE of 16, or 8 or 2?

Cya, Kyle
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[Xander]

I would agree that we don't need to replace a system that works as is, but another system would be interesting. Is there any corner of the world that does not use base 10?
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"Action is eloquence." - Shakespeare
(ENTP)

[Chaotic Order]

[ENTP@INTP]

[Kyle]

Perhaps many difficult math problems of today could easily be solved if they were to be interpreted in a different base.

You all actually think base 10, is the 'know all' best number base?
Do you think the US Feet/Inches Measurment System is any good?
Do you think the Metric system is really any better?

Metric is just cool because it is in base 10.... And we use base 10.... If we were using base 8 or something, hopefully our measurment system would use 2's 8's or 16's.....

Thats the problem with 10.... There are no other cool numbers dividable by it....Just 1, 2 and 5.... 10

Base 12 is fairly interesting, because we could easily divide by 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 12..
In base 16, you can easily divide by 1, 2, 4, 8

In bases 2 4 8 or 16.....

16 dollar bill would be 256 cents hex (10000)
4 dollar bill would be 64 cents (hex 0100)
dollars could be 16 cents (hex 0010)
quarters could be 4 cents (hex 0004) 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 = hex 10 (16)
nickels could be 1 cents (hex 0001)

In base 10....
nickels are 5
dimes are 10
quarters are 25
dollars are 100
5 dollars is 500

Some bases would suck, but we simply wouldn't think in terms of 10, if base 10 wasn't our system...
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[ENTP@INTP]

Metric system is better than the US Feet/Inches Measurement System, of course. Scientists would not choose wrong system, right?

Considering divisions, small prime factors of the base are naturally the most important. Division by 4 is only two subsequent divisions with 2. But 2*3*5 is already 30, and that is too large as a base.

Easy divisibility by primes beyond 5 are not important in practice, I think. An average individual cannot immediately see how many things there are in a group of seven. I think 7 would be the worst number base around 10. But of course 11 and 13 would be very bad, too.

I find it interesting that we do not use expressions like "I'll come a third before nine." or "It's one sixth over eight." or "A fifth of an hour." but only "half" and "quarter". Halving is much more natural to us than division by three . This lends some credibility to 8 and 16 bases. But it may also be that 60 is too large a number, and if we had 12 "bigminutes" in an hour then we maybe would use thirds (and sixths) of an hour, too. On the other, I find it hard to believe that we would never have "Attention! One third turn to LEFT!" etc.

One thing for the base 10 is that practically all people can immediately see 5 things in a group without need to regroup or count them one-by-one. Thinking about squares, five times five is 25 and four of them is ten times ten, 100. With bases 2, 4, 8, or 16 you can't use the maximal one-look-count capacity of human perception efficiently and you have to settle for one-look-count of four leaving you at 4 times 4 times 4 (1000000 in binary, 64 in decimal). The king Decimal the Wise, whose grain sacks are counted in base 10 has more efficient government than the poor kings Binary the Small, Octal the Humble and Hexadecimal the Megalomaniac.
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ENTP sCUx|I| aspie married to an ISTJ

[Kyle]

You are still thinking in base 10..... Instead of counting everything in 10's, youd count them in 8's....

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 30

I have 10 dollars (meaning 8 dollars)
10+20 = 20 (meaning 16 dollars)

If we always thought in base 8, then 8 would be the 'nice even number'..(10)
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[Chaotic Order]

[Kyle]

Yes, 24

But the point is.... In a base 8 system, 24 would be as 'natural feeling' as 30.
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[ENTP@INTP]

[Kyle]

I'd go with BASE 16....
(Base 8 is okay too, but I like BASE 16 better... easier to read)..

Since it's a power of 2....
It is the most efficient use of space.

For a 'digital system' to work, it relies heavily on 'binary (base 2)' information.. Each "bit" can hold a true/false, signal/no-signal, on/off value.... The reason they hold only true/false, rather than true/false/maybe, is because it is more accurate to handle data in base 2, since perfect voltage control is difficult to achieve.

0xFF = 255 .... 0xFF = 8bits
0x0100 = 256 ..... 0x0100=16bits

Except, there is no "power of 2" that equals our (base 10, #100).... So, everytime, we need to write 100, we are wasting space basically, and jumping to a new digit, before using every square inch of our technological resources.

Why, would future computers be in BASE 10? It's less efficient... Our technological advances have proven that. Our choice for a number system, is not exactly the best one.

Cya, Kyle
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