Is the decimal system of numbers inherently superior to other numerical bases??

[Braznor]

What is about decimal numeral system that makes visualizing the units easier than other bases of numbers? Eg. Binary, Hexagonal.

Is this advantage merely one of conditioning or is it inbuilt within our brains?

 

[seepy83]

If I had to guess, it's probably easier to learn from a young age because we have 10 fingers.

 

[DaTT]

Probably because we learned from a very young age the decimal system...base 10 and all that jazz.

I see it as the same as learning to speak in whatever language you learn in, it just comes naturally after it is learned.

 

[DrPizza]

Conditioning. Base 8 would work just as well if you started with kids at a young age & excluded their thumbs.

Furthermore, we really don't have a hard wired understanding of numbers. There are a few tribes in Africa or South America, where the people don't even have numbers other than 1, 2, many. (Some of the tribes have numbers up to 4 or 5.) They don't comprehend the concept of "10."

 

[FoBoT]

only for humans, since we have 10 digits (fingers)

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

The original base 60 number system of the babylonians is the greatest. What we have now is but a pale imitation.

 

[Lemon law]

I basically agree with seepy83, base 10 works better for humans, for no real reasons. So we could somewhat ask, why not base eight, nine , 10, 11 or 12...16.

But a binary number systems gets really cumbersome fast. 0 still equals 0, 1 still equals 1, two suddenly equals 10, and by the time we get to 100 based 10, we have impossibly long multidigit number I would find very difficult to relate to. And I would find it ever harder to relate to a hexadecimal system.

Present day computers relate very well to binary number systems, but make tiny errors trying to approximate numbers not evenly divisible by 2. But before we humans change to say a base 8 or base 16 number system, can be always assume computers will stay binary. After all, there is research ongoing to go to qbit compters.

 

[DaveSimmons]

"There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't"


But seriously, see DrPizza's response.

 

[FoBoT]

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

I basically agree with seepy83, base 10 works better for humans, for no real reasons. So we could somewhat ask, why not base eight, nine , 10, 11 or 12...16.

But a binary number systems gets really cumbersome fast. 0 still equals 0, 1 still equals 1, two suddenly equals 10, and by the time we get to 100 based 10, we have impossibly long multidigit number I would find very difficult to relate to. And I would find it ever harder to relate to a hexadecimal system.

Present day computers relate very well to binary number systems, but make tiny errors trying to approximate numbers not evenly divisible by 2. But before we humans change to say a base 8 or base 16 number system, can be always assume computers will stay binary. After all, there is research ongoing to go to qbit compters.

I can count to 1023 on my hands in binary. Makes your 10 look pretty silly doesn't?

 

[blinblue]

I can count to 1023 on my hands in binary. Makes your 10 look pretty silly doesn't?

I can count to 9999999999 with my fingers. It would require some very steady finger movement though to keep 10 positions in each finger discernible

 

[BladeVenom]

We should switch to hexadecimal.

 

[Train]

Any base that is a power of 2 (8 or 16 are prime candidates) would actually work best for math, and make it hella easy to integrate with computers. Since binary is easily converted to/from any other power of 2. The problem with base 10 is you end up with weird remainders when you try to convert to binary, especially when working with fractions.

Would be cool if the metric system were converted to base 16 (Hexadecimal) the hours in a day were changed to 16 (or 32 maybe, sorta lik AM/PM) and there were 16 months in a year. Everything would be so symetrical. Geeks like me would be more comfortable.

 

[Paratus]

There are
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
Wheels on a big rig!
Everyone sing it!

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Would be cool if the metric system were converted to base 16 (Hexadecimal) the hours in a day were changed to 16 (or 32 maybe, sorta lik AM/PM) and there were 16 months in a year. Everything would be so symetrical. Geeks like me would be more comfortable.

Geeks are never comfortable, even if math and the calendar were fixed to your satisfaction you'd still find something else to be twitchy about.

 

[Train]

Geeks are never comfortable, even if math and the calendar were fixed to your satisfaction you'd still find something else to be twitchy about.

true, 365 is not evenly divisible by 16, so we'd end up with something like we have now with different length months. arghh

 

[brianmanahan]

base 12 would be better, instead of just base factoribility of 2 and 5 it would be 2, 3, 4, and 6! smallest number with 4 nontrivial factors! imagine the posibilities!

 

[WelshBloke]

... There are a few tribes in Africa or South America, where the people don't even have numbers other than 1, 2, many. (Some of the tribes have numbers up to 4 or 5.) They don't comprehend the concept of "10."

What? How can someone not be comprehend the concept of 10?

 

[ss284]

Base 3 would be the most efficient.

 

[IronWing]

Base 13 is the only system that yields the correct answer to life, the universe, and everything.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

What? How can someone not be comprehend the concept of 10?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0Z0raWIHXk

 

[yllus]

Only tenuously related, but your post reminded of this:

Freakonomics - Why are Chinese (and other Asians) Better at Math?

"Take a look at the following list of numbers: 4, 8, 5, 3, 9, 7, 6. Read them out loud. Now look away and spend twenty seconds memorizing that sequence before saying them out loud again. If you speak English, you have about a 50 percent chance of remembering that sequence perfectly. If you're Chinese, though, you're almost certain to get it right every time."

The reason behind this, Gladwell writes, is because humans can store digits in a memory loop that last only about two seconds. In Chinese languages, numbers are shorter, allowing Chinese to both speak and remember those numbers in two seconds -- a fraction of the time it takes to remember those numbers in English.

Moreover, Asian languages such as Chinese, Japanese and Korean have a more logical counting system compared to the irregular ways that numerals are spoken in English. As Gladwell writes: Eleven is ten-one (十一 in Chinese), twelve is ten-two (十&#20108 and thirteen is ten-three (十&#19977 and so on.

Children in Asia thus learn to count faster than English-speaking children. Even fractions are easier for Asian children because they are more easily understood and conceptual. For example one-half (fifty percent) is understood as 百分之五十 (bǎi fēn zhī wǔ shí) or literally, fifty parts out of 100 parts. And because math is more easily understood, Asian children "get" math faster than their Western counterparts. This, Gladwell writes, has nothing to do with some sort of innate Asian proclivity for math.

 

[gevorg]

Decimal system is pretty natural and easy to understand for humans, but why should humans "convert" to a base system that makes sense to computers? It should be the other way around.

And yes, even a savage barbarian from some tribe can be taught to use a hex system, but it won't benefit anyone in real life applications. Leave it for the geeks, programmers, edu, etc.

 

[DrPizza]

Geeks are never comfortable, even if math and the calendar were fixed to your satisfaction you'd still find something else to be twitchy about.

<chanting>Down with pi, up with tau. Down with pi, up with tau. </chanting> Tau is superior to pi.

What? How can someone not be comprehend the concept of 10?

http://www.jcrows.com/withoutnumbers.html

 

[DrPizza]

Decimal system is pretty natural and easy to understand for humans, but why should humans "convert" to a base system that makes sense to computers? It should be the other way around.

And yes, even a savage barbarian from some tribe can be taught to use a hex system, but it won't benefit anyone in real life applications. Leave it for the geeks, programmers, edu, etc.

Actually, look at the link I gave - (or look for other links about the Pirahas) - they had no concept of numbers, thus wouldn't be able to comprehend hexadecimal (let alone the decimal system that researchers attempted to integrate into their lives.)

And, "why should humans 'convert' from our wonderful system?! I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII,... It's pretty natural and easy to understand, so why should we convert over to that arabic decimal system just because it makes sense to those mathematicians?" (Not saying that I think we'd ever convert away from decimal. Hell, the 'tards in the U.S. can't even convert over to the metric system.