this post was submitted on 24 May 2024
1186 points (97.6% liked)

Science Memes

14976 readers
1520 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] chellomere@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

No, 12 in base 12 is 10, not C. But yes, 10 can be A and 11 can be B

[–] drcobaltjedi@programming.dev 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Dude's out here trying to get us to use base 13.

[–] marcos@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Why not?

Why not use a large prime as the base?

[–] drcobaltjedi@programming.dev 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Honnest answer, 1/2 in DEC is 0.5 easy. 1/2 in base 13 is .6666666666.... Easy but ugly. You want a base that has comon fractions easily represented by decimals. People like dozenal since many fractions are easily represented. 1/2 = 0.6, 1/3 = 0.4, 1/4 = 0.3

I'm personally a fan of hexidecimal partly because I'm a programmer and partially because it can be halved several times

[–] unreasonabro@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

it's almost like you'd have to use a different notation system to express a different base...

[–] bisby@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] oktoberpaard@feddit.nl 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

No, because the 5 in your answer is thinking in decimal. 0.05 is not the half of 0.1 in base 13.

[–] SmoothLiquidation@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Ahh yes, let’s introduce floating point rounding errors for one half. Sounds fun.

[–] whotookkarl@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why use a fixed base? Or why not use an irrational number like e, the most efficient base

[–] marcos@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I still think some largish prime, like 37 hits the perfect spot of being usable enough for people to use, but still useless enough to stop almost everybody from learning any advanced math.

But yeah, making integers non-representable is a serious trade-off that deserves consideration.

[–] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago

Lets use base Pi and put an end to that infinite digit bullshit.

ah right, thanks