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Every base is base 10 (lemmy.world)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (6 children)

Same here. I read all the comments and still don't understand the joke.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago (5 children)

From the aliens perspective 4 is 10 and it's represented that way so, while having a different meaning, to the alien it is base 10.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (4 children)

I see that but why is it 10 from his perspective? Is it just the fact that the alien would write the number 4 with symbols for 10?

[–] snugglesthefalse 3 points 6 months ago

Assuming they use the same numbers then yes, 10 is 10 to us but it represents the separator of orders of magnitude. 10 in base 4 would from our perspective be 4, but ignoring the specific numbers and adapting them for the sake of the joke, the alien would write it as 10 and "base 10" would just be base 4. It's like how hexadecimal uses 0-9 and a-f to represent 16 numbers even though we don't have that many in decimal systems. The joke is a translation issue. I feel like I'm over explaining now though...

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