----- Original Message ----- From: "David Hobby" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, March 05, 2004 11:49 PM Subject: Re: Bases, was Re: Stirling engine queries
> Robert Seeberger wrote: > ... > > > I'd say that this stuff gets pretty fuzzy. One could argue > > > that 5 is more important than 11 and 13. On the other hand, one > > > could say that ending tests are better than sum of digits tests, > > > and conclude that 12 is superior since it replaces sum of digits > > > tests for 3,9,... with ending tests. Is this the kind of thing > > > you were thinking about? > > > > > > ---David > > > > Who needs whole number divisibility when you have fractions and can > > work decimals? > > You would have to do these things no matter what the base you use, in > > the real world. > > Getting people to change bases would be whole magnitudes of difficulty > > greater than getting them to go metric. > > <G> > > > > xponent > > Numbers game Maru > > rob > > Of course we could use base 7 or whatever, and get by > almost as well. And I agree that getting anyone to change would > be hopeless. I sometimes teach a math course for future elementary > school teachers, and wind up spending a week teaching them the > metric system, for college credit (!!). At the end of it, half > of them say things like "a cubic meter is a liter, which weighs > a gram". (So be prepared to teach your own children math...) > Rob, the point of this discussion was to explain why > we picked the base we did. I understand, but what I was saying is that it doesn't really make all that much a difference. There are just too many cases where you would still be using fractions and decimals, so a different base doesn't simplify things in the long run. Base 12 might be helpful when doing math in your head and it might be more intuitive in the most simple situations, but surely there would have to be some other overiding reason to use another base (other than the arbitrary numbers of digits, knuckles, and limbs), such as in the CS uses of Binary, Octal, And Hexadecimal. > Having ten fingers is obviously a > key factor, but there are examples of cultures that used base > 20 or 60, so it's not exactly the only one. I imagine that > we would use base 12 if we had 6 fingers. But suppose we had > 3 hands with 7 fingers each. Would we really use base 21? > Well....I agree.....but the point I was making implies that it doesn't really matter which base one uses in the long run. A value is a value no matter how it is expressed. And that's really what is being discussed isn't it? How values are expressed and if there are better ways to do this? (I'm thinking that calculation is a straightforward mechanical process in any base.) Am I wrong in thinking this? xponent 123456789ABCDEF Maru rob _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
