• Randelung@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

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

    • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 months ago

      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.

    • Dicska@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      “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” could be twenty two, twoty two, dbgluqboq, or Janet. But similarly to how we don’t have a single syllable, dedicated number name for 22 (decimal), they may not have a single syllable, dedicated number name for 10 (decimal, which is 22 in base 4).

      • Randelung@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        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.

        • Dicska@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          I never argued that. I wasn’t even talking about the word ‘ten’ in English but the usefulness of the word ‘ten’ in base 4.

          EDIT: I see where you’re coming from: base 10 English also has a unique name for something that is not 0-9 or a power of 10 - however, the only reason to this is that they are from base 12. Obviously base 12 has unique words for numbers below the base. But not numbers above it (apart from maybe powers of 12). Which further proves the point.