Saturday, February 06, 2010

Base 11


OK, any Math Heads out there? The Arabic numerals we use is called Base 10, which means once you go above the number 9 you need to place a digit in front and proceeded going from zero to nine again. We all know how it works.

Now what I’d like to know is what would the symbol for the number 10 look like if our system was based upon Base 11 and wouldn’t the word Base 10 mean Base Eleven?

11 Comments:

Blogger qandlequeen said...

I think you're supposed to invoke a new symbol like "X" to represent 10... or something like that and then 11 should be 10? Making 20 2X

Wait

no

crap

5:01 AM  
Blogger Donna. W said...

You lost me at "hello".

5:03 AM  
Blogger Beth said...

Huh?
I am so not a Math Head.

5:52 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I don't get it either....but...It's a slow day in a little East Texas town.. The sun is beating down, and the streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.. On this particular day a rich tourist from back east is driving through town.

He stops at the motel and lays a $100 bill on the desk saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night.

As soon as the man walks upstairs, the owner grabs the bill and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.

The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to retire his debt to the pig farmer.

The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off to pay his bill at the supplier of feed and fuel.

The guy at the Farmer's Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the local prostitute, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer her "services" on credit.

The hooker rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill with the hotel owner.

The hotel proprietor then places the $100 back on the counter so the rich traveler will not suspect anything.

At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, picks up the $100 bill, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, pockets the money, and leaves town.

No one produced anything. No one earned anything.

However, the whole town is now out of debt and now looks to the future with a lot more optimism.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the Government is conducting business today.

Moose

6:11 AM  
Blogger JustRex said...

Ya got me. This early in the morning I'm not even going to try and think about it. But if you really want to know, go look up the song "New Math" by Tom Lehrer and give it a listen. Tom will explain it all to you in simple easy to understand terms.


veri word: lings- what chinese women wear on their fingers.

7:55 AM  
Blogger mark said...

In base 11, the symbol for the digit after 9 is "A".

8:21 AM  
Blogger Shelly Rayedeane said...

I'm having a blonde moment. I'm still stuck wondering about the letters in your last post and contemplating if I need to be less longwinded so my sentences don't look like orgies.

10:10 AM  
Blogger The Guy Who Writes This said...

Q, that like some sort of weird Roman Numerology.

Donna, you must be really lost because I never said hello.

Beth, you are a Bookie.

Moose, dabbling into American Politics are you?

Darev, ahhh, the Will Rogers of the Piano.

Mark, so would the next be B if it were Base 12?

Shelly, be yourself and be free. Don't edit yourself. Your thoughts are welcome here.

1:20 PM  
Blogger qandlequeen said...

Isn't roman numerology base 5?

Let me stop here and just gloat for a second that I even understand what the hell you're talking about. It's one of the very few math concepts I ever "got".

signed,
got a 4 (yes FOUR) on the math section of the ACT. yes, FOUR.

2:30 PM  
Blogger The Guy Who Writes This said...

Q, I can see how you'd come to that conclusion but it too is a base 10 system. According to Wikipedia, "Roman numerals have symbols for the decimal powers (1, 10, 100, 1000) and secondary symbols for half these values (5, 50, 500)."

To me this is a pretty orderly system. It's like a symbolic abacus.

4:29 PM  
Blogger mark said...

Yes; B comes after A in base 12. Base 16 has some practical applications in computing. The base 16 digits are 0 - 9, A, B, C, D, E, and F. Wikipedia has a pretty comprehensive article: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexadecimal?wasRedirected=true

9:09 AM  

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