this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2024
655 points (92.9% liked)

Science Memes

13467 readers
1345 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.

Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.

Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
655
suck it, math nerds (mander.xyz)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
90 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Putting things in base 10 is also a definition. Digits aren't special.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Was going to say the same. Also π isn't infinite. Far from it. it's not even bigger than 4. It's representation in the decimal system is just so that it can't be written there with a finite number of decimal places. But you could just write "π". It's short, concise and exact.

And by that definition 0.1 is also infinite... My computer can't write that with a finite amount of digits in base 2, which it uses internally.

So... I'm crying salty tears, too.

[Edit: And we don't even need transcendental numbers or other number systems. A third also doesn't have a representation. So again following the logic... you can divide a cake into 5 pieces, but never into 3?!]

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Can pi be expressed with a finite amount of digits in another number system?

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (2 children)

How about a pi based system, then pi is 1.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Possible, but then the diameter would be an irrational number

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I don't think there's any technical reason we can't count in base pi

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I'm pretty happy with being able to write integers in a finite number of digits. Wouldn't want to give that up.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well we need an integer base number system....

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"A base is usually a whole number bigger than 1, although non-integer bases are also mathematically possible."

https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_(mathematics)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But it makes life harder

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not if you're mainly interested in counting multiples of pi.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

nπ is much better

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Not sure where you're going with the decimal thing. Pi had infinite digits in any integer base because it's irrational.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I thought that was the joke in the comic? That we can't know numbers exactly that have an infinite decimal expansion. That'd be true for some rational numbers like a third, if you change the basis of the numeral system it'd be different numbers. And irrational numbers too if you have a integer base. But I'd argue how we write down a number isn't what determines exactness or 'infinity' by the words of the comic.