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Do you think our base 10 number system is stupid? I do.

A

Ameesh

Lifer
Phooey on the base 10 number system!

I remember in 1999 when I was in college, our teacher told us he was in a group that advocate the switch to Base 12. I say, we should pick a nice prime number like 13 or 17.
 
Originally posted by: notfred
I think we should use base 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
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I agree, numbers would become much, much shorter.
OK so we'd have to have a few new symbols for the numbers, but it's a trade off I'm willing to take.
 
Do you think our base 10 number system is stupid? I do.
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Well, a lot of things in life are stupid, but they exist. These are wars, drugs, alcohol, tobacco, bad sugared food that everyone eats, lollipops, candy, chocolate and what not. All of these things are harmful and thus stupid. But there's nothing we can do to make them go away. I guess you're stuck with the base 10 number system 😉.
 
I kind of like hexadecimal, actually... More efficient than base 10, the symbols are already defined, and computers can use it naturally. About the only downside is the multiplication tables would be larger, so harder to learn.

But then again, as a college engineering student, I don't mulitply anyway. That's what my little TI-89 is for. Or Windows Calculator. Basic math is like, so retro... 😀
 
I never understood why we can't just work in base pi. Sure you cannot define natural numbers this way but who needs those anyway.
 
Originally posted by: Hanpan
I never understood why we can't just work in base pi. Sure you cannot define natural numbers this way but who needs those anyway.
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I don't think you can define any rational numbers with a number system that has an irrational base.

EDIT: in the same way that we cannot accurately define irrational numbers using a rational base.
 
Originally posted by: Michael1897
why not a base 2 number system
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There are actual advantages to base 12 and base 16 over base 10.

There are not, however, advantages to base 2 over base 10 for humans... do you really like writing out three bazillion zeros and ones?
 
I always thought that BASE10 was decent... but I think when math is originally taught and used, it should be taught with more fluidity - like people should learn other bases just as well up to BASE16!

Seriously, some problems could be worked out so much better with different bases.. and another thing.. decimals should work just fine in base systems - why the hell won't they be used that way in modern math?
 
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