Every base is base 10

I like the detail that there alien has 4(10) fingers as opposed to the 10(22) that the human has.

Now I get the joke.
Thanks!

There are 10 types of people: Those who understand binary and those who don't.

And those who didn’t expect the joke to be in base 3
- You forgot the ones who expected it to be in base 4.

Based.

https://piped.video/watch?v=qDVX_CizAdg?si=6EV3KEGrZdFITYK3

I like that the alien has 4 fingers. Fitting!

It's 10 fingers. Just keep your freaky 11 finger hands of this serious discussion
- Wouldn't it be 22?

There are only 10 ways of doing things: the right way and the wrong way. (Programming joke)

There are actually 00000000000000000000000000000010 ways of doing things (in most languages)
Will only if your language is 1-index based, yuck. Otherwise there is just 0 and 1 way
- Binary is the best base.

Huh, that's a good point. A better universal naming system would be something like "Base x+1", with x being one integer lower than 10. So humans would use Base 9+1, and the alien would use Base 3+1.

*This has been on my mind all day and the more I think about it, the more obvious it becomes how fundamentally terrible the name "Base-10" is. How did this never occur to the people who coined the term? Even the system I suggested is flawed as it's still trying to incorporate the same bad logic.

A better system would be something like Base 9, stopping shy of the respective 10 in each system, or if it needs to be clarified, Base 9+0, as 0 is the extra digit in the first place, not 10.

we'd only be able to represent bases for numbers with one digit though because what does base 15+1 mean? the 15 could be in any base higher than 5. the clearest way would probably be to just represent it with lines or something "base ||||||||||"
- Base 16 is typically represented with letters being used as the extra numerals, so it would end up being F+1. Problem solved.
- It's only 15 to us because we use base 10 (or 9+1). Like how we have 4 through 9, but that aliens in the picture only count up to 3.
  In the case of a mismatch, the culture using the higher base would just translate down (Base 21+1 in the given scenario).
  Single units would probably be the simplest method, but also wildly impractical as the base gets higher. You really want to count each digit just to figure out someone uses Base 100?
- wait until you find out about hexadecimal systems. It turns out we already have words for referring to numbers lol.
What about Roman numerals?
- I think that would confuse things more than it would help. It's base 5, unless it's base 10, unless it's base 50, etc. And then there's the rules designating numbers 1 below certain other numbers, or 2 below, depending on the system being used. That's a whole web of complications when communication is already murky.
  One glyph to one integer communicates the number system being used more clearly.

All your base belong to us

Not to be that guy - just to make sure you nail it perfectly next time - it's "all your base are belong to us"
- What you say?

Wow I never thought about that.

But it is always like this:

    
let there be any base "b"
That can represent a number by the sum of their positional digits:

number = sum(d_i * b ^ i)
   where i is the position index and d_i is the digit at this position. (note: index starts with 0, from the least digit farthest to the right)

So the (decimal) number 4 in base 4 is then

    
1×4¹ + 0×4^0 = 10

And (decimal) number 8 in base 8 is

    
1×8¹ + 0×8^0 = 10

And 10 in base 10:

    
1×10¹ + 0×10^0 = 10

All your bases belong to 10
- All your base are belong to 10
Which is why to write hexadecimal, we added letters to it, because there isn't a digit for "12".

Octal is base 8. Decimal is base A. Hexadecimal is base G. Any questions?

Jesus Christ.
I just realized that we call binary base2 and there's no 2 in that numbering system. We call hexadecimal base16 but there's no 16 (at least not like we know it). But then why is base10 base10? We have a 10...but it's not a single digit number.
Why is this reminding me of Project Hail Mary?
- Every base has ten, but it's made of two digits
  Binary 0, 1, 10 Ternary 0, 1, 2, 10 ... Decimal 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 Hex 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F, 10
  Each has the right count of digits for its base before you go two-digit - binary has two (0, 1), etc
- It's because we count the 0...... no? 0 and 1, base 2. 0123456789, base 10.
- because then every base would be 'base 10'
  That or the decriarchy has been normalizing the decimal counting system as the default one for far too long!
- (There is no 10 in base-10, which is why we construct it out of two other numbers)
- Love that book!
What about unniftimal? (Base 37)
- If there's no agreed symbol for digit 37, you can call it Base 37_A (or express it in another base of your choosing).
  In case the formatting doesn't work, that A is supposed to be subscript
every unsigned system is base -1 ...or maybe -1+1

Base 20. 1,2,3,4,10,11,12,13,14,20
- That's base 5.
- just as theres no single numeral for 10 in base 10, theres no numeral for 4 in base 4.
  1 2 3 10 11 12 13 20 21 22

Only when written, which is the whole point of notation. "Ten" is still a fixed amount, and so is four.

"ten" is a fixed amount in base 10. A base 4 user may have an entirely different naming system for numbers above 3, so "ten" (which is written as 22 in base 4) could be twenty two, twoty two, dbgluqboq, or Janet. But similarly to how we don't have a single syllable, dedicated number name for decimal 22 (as in, it's composed of the number names 'twenty' and 'two'), they may not have a single syllable, dedicated number name for decimal 10 (which is '22' in base 4).
- No, ten is a fixed amount in English. It has roots in base ten, but we also have eleven and twelve from other bases. (also dozen, gross, score.) In English there is no ambiguity when it comes to what number the word ten represents.
even when written out non base ten systems, are still possible to be non base ten.
It's only base ten when you convert from one base system to another. We are merely referencing between two base systems when we say that 4 bits is "16" because there are 16 possible options there. 16 is just our conceptualized version and conversion of that base system, in ours. You can read binary as if it's just powers of 2, it's incredibly trivial.
octal and hex are the best example of this, because octal skips numbers while counting. Hex introduces letters. Neither of which fly even remotely sanely through base ten. Unless you're converting.

Looks like 0100 rocks to me

That's not 64 rocks
Edit: In C any number that starts with 0 is implicitly interpreted as an octal.

int i = 0100; // this is octal 100 i.e. 64
I can tell from the upovotes vs. downvotes that I'm too old
- 00 = 0 01 = 1 10 = 2 11 = 3 100 = 4 .....

10 is actually only 2. The number of people misunderstanding binary here is mind blowing xD.

Not sure of you're trolling or not...

Took me a moment

Fuck I am so lost

A base 4 number system has 4 numbers in it: 0, 1, 2, and 3.
After 3 the next numbers are 10, 11, 12, 13, 20, 21, etc.
A base 10 number system has 10 numbers in it, 0 through 9.
Hexadecimal is base 16: 0-9 followed by A-F
The alien using a "base 4" number system does not have a single digit for the number "4". They represent four of something with the number "10", so for them, their four digit number system is "base 10".
- Based
  Also decided not to invite because this comment is at 69 and I can't think of anything more based than that.
The alien has 4 fingers, and writes base 4 as "base 10". It's basically just a translation problem.
Same here. I read all the comments and still don't understand the joke.
- From the aliens perspective 4 is 10 and it's represented that way so, while having a different meaning, to the alien it is base 10.

The most reliable way to communicate bases would probably be using unary. Now if your alien is using unary, that might not work, but it should for all higher bases.

I'm not sure if I fully understand.
I was thinking, wouldn't it be easiest to describe the system you use by taking the last number in your first decimum and then saying you increment it with one?
E.g. for base ten this would be: base 9 + 1
For binary it would be: base 1 + 1
For hexadecimal it would be: base F + 1
Etc.
- But if you're talking to an alien that uses base 4, they don't know what you mean by "base 9+1". Wtf is a 9?

This one took me a bit.

"2.5, 5, 7.5, TEN! See?"

Two point what?

🤯

I remember someone trying to come up with a solution to this by generating a name for every single base, dunno if they've succeeded or not tho

This is why I say "10" is not a number, it just means one big group and zero remainder.
I am a huuuuge proponent of dozenal (base-12)

Plot twist: there are 8 other stones and the alien is really using base 10 (or base 30 if you use base 4)

base 10 (in decimal) is expressed as "22" in base 4. 2*4 + 2
- If there are 8 more stones...
  Hate to explain my joke but I used yet another base

every base is not base ten, and i will fight you on this one.

binary is base two, or as i like to refer to it, the power of 2 base.

/r/swoosh
PS: Is there an equivalent in Lemmy for this yet?
- waiting until people realize i said ten, instead of 10.
In every base, a 1 in the second spot corresponds to the name of the base.

Thanks. I realized the typo after I saved. Oh well.