Alt text:
So what do we do when we get to base 10? Do we use A, B, C, etc? No: Numbers larger than about 3.6 million are simply illegal.
this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
325 points (99.4% liked)
xkcd
8616 readers
11 users here now
A community for a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
This is actually a pretty cool idea.
Not really. The reality is that the only real metric for the utility of a notation is the speed of computation. A constant positional notation system is the most efficient, then you just optimise for a base whose multiplication table can be memorised (27 is a good one). Many people are under the impression that highly composite bases are better, but the reality is that it only optimises for euclidean division which is far out weighed by multiplication and addition (and can be easily computed using them).
Well I didn't say practical or efficient, it's just a cool idea :)