Are numbers Real #2

[Mr.Obvious]

You guys run on decimal time in The US too, right?

[LastPoet]

Binary is sufficient to represent any real number.

BTW 0.11111111111.... =1

[Silver]

[robvalue]

Wow that’s cool. I didn’t know they came about that way (the Romans).

I was thinking what base 1 numbers would look like. I realised that it would just be adding a 1 every time. I’m not sure without checking whether that’s considered a valid system. It’s obviously very stupid, and is the equivalent of putting objects along the floor in a line. Weirdly, the 0 character would only ever appear once at the start.

0
1
11
111
1111
11111

It's called Unary and it is used in primitive accounting. Think marks on a tally stick for counting.

Yes of course, this occurred to me later as well I didn’t realise it had a name, although I think I got an infection there once.

I am fascinated with the importance of extremely weird numbers such as pi and e. They crop up all over the frigging place, sometimes from things you’d never expect.

For example, the infinite sum of inverse squares, if my memory serves me right:

1/1 + 1/4 + 1/9 + ... = (pi^2)/6

Can’t remember what I did five minutes ago, of course. But I remember stuff like this I learnt over 20 years ago.

[vulcanlogician]

Binary is sufficient to represent any real number.

BTW 0.11111111111.... =1

I thought it was 0.9999999999 = 1

[GrandizerII]

Binary is sufficient to represent any real number.

BTW 0.11111111111.... =1

I thought it was 0.9999999999 = 1

Binary system, lol

1 + 1 = 10

[LastPoet]

Binary is sufficient to represent any real number.

BTW 0.11111111111.... =1

I thought it was 0.9999999999 = 1

That is using a decimal system. This stems from the fact that a real number can have more than one numeric representation. In binary, 0.111.... =1.

We already knew that from rational numbers, e.g: 2/2 = 3/3 =1.

[LastPoet]

I thought it was 0.9999999999 = 1

Binary system, lol

1 + 1 = 10

There are 10 kinds of people. Those that understand binary and those who don't.

[robvalue]

Binary is also useful for modelling religious thinking.

[Fireball]

I’d say it’s pretty certain that we use base 10 because we have that many fingers.

Considering that it's a man's world I'm surprised we haven't been using base 11.

Spoken English renders this as "two hands and one dick".

Anyone ever read Donnerjack, by Zelazny and Lindskold? There's some usage along those lines in that book.