• SuperApples@lemmy.world
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    13 hours ago

    In Chinese/Japanese, there’s 四 rocks in both base 10, and base 4. (8 rocks would be 二四 in base 4).

    I think the concept of “base” is easier to understand when you include a numeral for the highest base (10 = 十, 20 =二十).

    Of course, arabic numerals are more concise, using position to imply meaning (21 = 二十一).

      • pyre@lemmy.world
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        7 hours ago

        they already said that they have numerals for the base they use. from what I understood, basically imagine we use base 10 but have a numeral for it, let’s say X. our numbers go like this:

        1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, X, X1,X2, X3, X4, X5, X6, X7, X8, X9, 2X, 2X1, 2X2, etc…

        so i imagine it’s similarwhen they use base 4:

        1, 2, 3, 4, 41, 42, 43, 24, 241, 242, 243, 34…

        mind that i have no knowledge on this and I’m only interpreting what i understood from the comment above.

        • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip
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          4 hours ago

          But the extra numeral that you’re representing with X would be base 11. It’s like how hexadecimal uses A-F for 10-15. But the range of numerals still ends at 15 instead of 16 because the 0 exists.

          • pyre@lemmy.world
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            4 hours ago

            you’re conflating number systems. in this number system the positioning doesn’t assign value. that’s like saying Roman numerals are base 1001 because M.

    • stebo@sopuli.xyz
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      12 hours ago

      8 rocks would be 二四 in base 4

      ok but what about 16? there’s symbols for powers of 10 but not for powers of 4