• @[email protected]
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    306 months ago

    50 years? I bet we couldn’t even agree on how to write “11” & “12” on such short notice. (See: date format, encoding, etc)

    • @problematicPanther
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      96 months ago

      we could just go with the hexidecimal way and go with A,B,C for 10,11 and 12

      • @chellomere
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        166 months ago

        No, 12 in base 12 is 10, not C. But yes, 10 can be A and 11 can be B

          • @marcos
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            46 months ago

            Why not?

            Why not use a large prime as the base?

            • @[email protected]
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              86 months ago

              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

              • @bisby
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                16 months ago

                Is 1/2 in base 13 not 0.65?

                • @[email protected]
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                  6 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.

              • @unreasonabro
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                16 months ago

                it’s almost like you’d have to use a different notation system to express a different base…

            • @SmoothLiquidation
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              36 months ago

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

            • @whotookkarl
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              26 months ago

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

              • @marcos
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                6 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.

    • @AdrianTheFrog
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      26 months ago

      The current standard seems to be an upside down 2 and 3