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The Birkana hexadecimal number symbols

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Re: The Birkana hexadecimal number symbols

#41

Post by blahedo »

zokier wrote: post #37
pygy_ wrote: post #27

The bibi-binary notation is somewhat similar (16 === 2^2^2). It was patented in 1968 by Bobby Lapointe, a French variety singer, but didn't get much traction AFAICT. Bibi-binary also has a custom pronunciation for hex digits. The article is in French[0], but the main illustration that describes the system is self-explanatory[1]. 0. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syst%C3%A8me_Bibi-binaire 1. https://upload.wikimedia.or…

What's with the different BI/KI shapes? I would have expected them to be just rotated variations of each other, like for example BA/KE are

The shapes are all able to be written in a way that visits points in the corners of the square in the same order (UL, LL, UR, LR). So 0111 and 1110 can be written with the skewed V shape because the 1's are in sequence, while 1011 and 1101 are written with rotated L shapes because they skip one of the middle bits. (Compare also 1111, a backwards N shape).

Re: The Birkana hexadecimal number symbols

#43

Post by blahedo »

pygy_ wrote: post #27

The bibi-binary notation is somewhat similar (16 === 2^2^2). It was patented in 1968 by Bobby Lapointe, a French variety singer, but didn't get much traction AFAICT. Bibi-binary also has a custom pronunciation for hex digits. The article is in French[0], but the main illustration that describes the system is self-explanatory[1]. 0. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syst%C3%A8me_Bibi-binaire 1. https://upload.wikimedia.or…

I just translated the article to English; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibi-binary .

Re: The Birkana hexadecimal number symbols

#44

Post by lccarrasco »

blahedo wrote: post #43
pygy_ wrote: post #27

The bibi-binary notation is somewhat similar (16 === 2^2^2). It was patented in 1968 by Bobby Lapointe, a French variety singer, but didn't get much traction AFAICT. Bibi-binary also has a custom pronunciation for hex digits. The article is in French[0], but the main illustration that describes the system is self-explanatory[1]. 0. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syst%C3%A8me_Bibi-binaire 1. https://upload.wikimedia.or…

I just translated the article to English; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibi-binary .

Thanks a lot! :)

Re: The Birkana hexadecimal number symbols

#45

Post by lern_too_spel »

daeken wrote: post #28
david-given wrote: post #25

Fun fact: you can count to hexadecimal on the fingers of one hand. The way it works is that each of your four fingers has four well-defined places on them: the three joints, plus the tip. You use your thumb to point at one of these. The first finger represents 1-4, the second 5-8, the third 9-12, the fourth 13-16. You count up and down by moving your thumb. Also, because you use the thumb of the same hand for pointin…

Counting in binary gets you even further. If each finger is one bit, you can easily count to 2^10-1 == 1023. I frequently use this to keep track of running totals over 10.

This method is impractical to use due to the way the human hand works. Representing numbers where the middle and ring fingers are in different positions is tricky, and using this method for counting quickly is nearly impossible because it requires the simultaneous movement of multiple fingers up and down.

The method of counting on finger creases, on the other hand, is entirely practical, and I've known people who have used it for more than 50 years.

Re: The Birkana hexadecimal number symbols

#46

Post by yorwba »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #45
daeken wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counting in binary gets you even further. If each finger is one bit, you can easily count to 2^10-1 == 1023. I frequently use this to keep track of running totals over 10.

This method is impractical to use due to the way the human hand works. Representing numbers where the middle and ring fingers are in different positions is tricky, and using this method for counting quickly is nearly impossible because it requires the simultaneous movement of multiple fingers up and down. The method of counting on finger creases, on the other hand, is entirely practical, and I've known people who hav…

There is quite some variation in the way the human hand works. I can move my middle and ring fingers completely independently, but when I stretch my left middle finger, my left pinky tries to extend, too. I can prevent this by pressing its tip against my palm.

Except for this difficulty, simultaneously moving multiple fingers is no problem for me. For binary counting you just need to flip a group of fingers inward and extend the next one. There are instruments that require more difficult movement patterns to play.

I just timed myself repeatedly counting to 32 as fast as possible on my left hand, and I averaged at 13 seconds. That seems entirely practical to me.

Re: The Birkana hexadecimal number symbols

#47

Post by porges »

ajb wrote: post #36

The geomantic figures ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomantic_figures ) can also represent 4 bit values. Unfortunately they aren't in unicode either. The Ba gua ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagua ) are, but can only represent 3 bits per symbol.

The Tài Xuán Jīng symbols are, however. A subset can be used like:

𝌆𝌇𝌉𝌊𝌏𝌐𝌒𝌓𝌡𝌢𝌤𝌥𝌪𝌫𝌭𝌮

So Unicode has Bagua (3 bits), Tài Xuán Jīng (4 trits), and I Ching (6 bits, but incomplete).

Re: The Birkana hexadecimal number symbols

#48

Post by drostie »

yawaramin wrote: post #31
lucb1e wrote: post #24

What I find the neatest is that it's not just showing hexadecimals, but the binary representation at the same time. In the Birkana symbol for 9 it's very easy to recognize the binary 1001: it has the top and bottom 'bits' set. It also made me aware that I never thought about the symbols we use for numbers. Our digits 0 through 9 suddenly seem very arbitrary, looking at Birkana. Though ten digits are more difficult th…

As for the logic behind our decimal digits, there was an explanation going around for it, but at best it's probably reaching very hard. I'll let you decide: http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=49183

The actual logic is a bit more benign.

Once upon a time, the digit for 0 was a dot, the digit for 1 was (close to) ι, the digit for 2 was (close to) μ, the digit for 3 was close to w with a leading descender like μ has. The digit for 4 might have been closer to a + sign that eventually morphed to look more like a backwards 2. It was the number of vertical lines which encoded 1, 2, or 3; with 4 and 5 and 6 there was more need to come up with more-abstract symbols.

In Arabic these first 4 digits have actually survived relatively unmolested, ٠‎ - ١‎ - ٢‎ - ٣‎, while the backwards 2 for 4 started hooking down to become a ٤ and some other stuff happened with the next 5 digits.

In English the digits for 2, 3, and 4 all rotated about 90 degrees counterclockwise while the tail disappeared for the 3 and the 4 didn't close up on the top until relatively late.

Re: The Birkana hexadecimal number symbols

#50

Post by thaumasiotes »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #45
daeken wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counting in binary gets you even further. If each finger is one bit, you can easily count to 2^10-1 == 1023. I frequently use this to keep track of running totals over 10.

This method is impractical to use due to the way the human hand works. Representing numbers where the middle and ring fingers are in different positions is tricky, and using this method for counting quickly is nearly impossible because it requires the simultaneous movement of multiple fingers up and down. The method of counting on finger creases, on the other hand, is entirely practical, and I've known people who hav…

> using this method for counting quickly is nearly impossible because it requires the simultaneous movement of multiple fingers up and down

Simple solution: use the Gray code. :D

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