My supressed and unfed inner math-lover blurping out on you
(If easily bored, skip to unde the next header, that's the actual content)
I just started re-watching the vihart blog of a strangely wonderful female math-nerd who wears the most awsome red wrist warmers. She talks in a way that relays a lot of information while keeping me both attentive, entertained, and at times maybe even awestruck at how cool the world is. Go watch!
Anyways, after starting thinking in maths a thought struck me. I'm sure many thought of it before. But;
(short prehistory: I got good math grades, took more advanced maths in highschool and absolutely loved it, and then started doing thugish brainless things like bus-driving so maths stopped existing to me. Now i'm having my first relapse to my inner love of cool maths)
THE IDEA
Why is 5 considered an important number? Because it is half-way to ten, wich is considered important because it is a round number the way we see it.
But why 10? Could it not just as well be, say, 8? Then the row of numbers would go 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,10,11,12 etc. Translated to western-arabic numerals (the ones we use), in my 8-system (let's call it the octa-numerals) 10 equals 8, 11 equals 9, 12 equals 10, etc. Are you with me?
This wouldn't be any harder to use. We'd still have the same use of the decimals, and of the way of having multiple digit numbers to acommodate high ammounts. We'd be thinking differently though - we'd be tending to stop at 4 rather then 5 because 4 would be the semi-round number, it would be a milestone to reach 8 participants and not 10, etc.
HEXDECIMAL
I can't fully take the honour of getting that idea completely by myself, because i know there is similar systems. Particularily hexdecimal, wich revolves around 16 in stead of 10 like the western-arabic and 8 like my octa-numerals. There the row is:
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F,10,11 etc
So there 9 is 9, A is 10, F is 15, 10 is 16, 1F is 31.
Got it? Maybe not, it's not all that easy to get your head around. I'll explain more thorugh:
The row of numbers would be: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-(not 10 but)A-B-C-D-E-F-10(so you get two digits at 16, not at 10),11(17),12(18),13(19, the secound digit increases by one but remember that 10 is 16 and you're counting upwards from that)-14-15-16-17-18-19(that's 25),1A(26),1B(27),1C(28),1D(29),1E(39),1F(31),20(32).
Got it?
OTHER MUSINGS
It is interesting to think that no matter what you call it, be it 10, 12(octa) og A(hex), the actual ammount is still constantly the same.
Also it is a interesting thought that it is very much like speaking another language. You'll at first be translating all the time from the hex or octa-version to the arabic version to wich you're native, but in a while you'll learn to use the new numerals like a new well-spoken language.
And if you're recognising the hexdecimals - you've probably seen them in the HTML colour codes, you know, the #3F27A8? That is a colour code in hex, for the values of the three different colours, where hex is used because you can count to 255 with it with just two digits (FF).
ENDING
If that made your head blew up, i apologise. If it bored you, likewise.
If it however made you understand something or was interesing i'd be really happy for a like, or something in my ask-box :)