Polynesian people used a kind of binary number system 600 years ago (2013)
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Re: Polynesian people used a kind of binary number system 600 years ago (2013)
#2A couple of Native American tribes used octal because base 8 works for the number of things you can carry between the fingers. Would have made computing a bit simpler if that had been adopted instead of base 10.
Re: Polynesian people used a kind of binary number system 600 years ago (2013)
#3Computers use base two because their most natural unit can occupy one of a couple states: 0 or 1. One, two, base two.
Human hands, on the other foot, have ten fingers. Since our favorite mapping between things and integers is finger counting, we naturally end up with more than two states. Zero, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and the fully-extended state, ten. That's eleven states, which is why the global human standard is base-eleven.
Wait, what?
Re: Polynesian people used a kind of binary number system 600 years ago (2013)
#4The problem I have with these sorts of articles is that they have a clear agenda behind them. Okay, so they used binary numbers 600 years ago. But why is that posted here? It's not because it's interesting. It's like a 'hey look they were ahead of us on one thing' sort of thing. Which isn't true, obviously.
Re: Polynesian people used a kind of binary number system 600 years ago (2013)
#5Computers use base two because their most natural unit can occupy one of a couple states: 0 or 1. One, two, base two. Human hands, on the other foot, have ten fingers. Since our favorite mapping between things and integers is finger counting, we naturally end up with more than two states. Zero, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and the fully-extended state, ten. That's eleven states, which is why…
There's a lot more possible states than eleven. 32 if you count just whether a finger is extended. More if you allow crossing fingers, interaction between hands, etc. And this isn't theoretical either:
Re: Polynesian people used a kind of binary number system 600 years ago (2013)
#6The ability of the Polynesians to settle huge stretches of the Pacific might be one of the most impressive human achievements ever.
Odds are they reached South America even if we never find direct evidence (there is some).
Re: Polynesian people used a kind of binary number system 600 years ago (2013)
#7Computers use base two because their most natural unit can occupy one of a couple states: 0 or 1. One, two, base two. Human hands, on the other foot, have ten fingers. Since our favorite mapping between things and integers is finger counting, we naturally end up with more than two states. Zero, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and the fully-extended state, ten. That's eleven states, which is why…
There's a lot more possible states than eleven. 32 if you count just whether a finger is extended. More if you allow crossing fingers, interaction between hands, etc. And this isn't theoretical either: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_number_gestures
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Re: Polynesian people used a kind of binary number system 600 years ago (2013)
#8Computers use base two because their most natural unit can occupy one of a couple states: 0 or 1. One, two, base two. Human hands, on the other foot, have ten fingers. Since our favorite mapping between things and integers is finger counting, we naturally end up with more than two states. Zero, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and the fully-extended state, ten. That's eleven states, which is why…
Imagine you had two fingers and not ten. Try counting in binary. That should clear up the anomaly.
Re: Polynesian people used a kind of binary number system 600 years ago (2013)
#9Computers use base two because their most natural unit can occupy one of a couple states: 0 or 1. One, two, base two. Human hands, on the other foot, have ten fingers. Since our favorite mapping between things and integers is finger counting, we naturally end up with more than two states. Zero, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and the fully-extended state, ten. That's eleven states, which is why…
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Re: Polynesian people used a kind of binary number system 600 years ago (2013)
#10Computers use base two because their most natural unit can occupy one of a couple states: 0 or 1. One, two, base two. Human hands, on the other foot, have ten fingers. Since our favorite mapping between things and integers is finger counting, we naturally end up with more than two states. Zero, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and the fully-extended state, ten. That's eleven states, which is why…
Imagine you had two fingers and not ten. Try counting in binary. That should clear up the anomaly.
You can count from zero to two on two fingers, so two-fingered aliens may invent numerals for zero, one and two. If they develop that into a place value system, it will be (fingers+1)-ary, or in their case trinary.