We have basic words for the numbers zero to three, so why not use them to count?
- None (0)
- Single (1)
- pair (2)
- Multiple (3+ but we’ll use it as three)
So with those “digits” we can construct some numbers:
- Single
- pair
- Multiple
- Single nothing
- Single single
- Single pair
- Single multiple
- Pair of nothing
- Pair of singels
- Pair of pairs
And of course we can construct bigger numbers like:
42 = 4²×2+4¹×2+4⁰×2 = pair of pairs of pairs
128 = 4³×2 = pair of absolute complete nothinges
For this last one I just use some adjectives to repeat the “nothing” as it looks really weird with multiple nothing in a row.
The distance between Stockholm and Gothenburg is a single multiple of none multiple multiples
Could I have a single multiple of bananas please?
But why? And if we would change the base, why to 4 and not something much more useful like 12?
Base 12 being the best is probably why AI keeps trying to give people six digits per hand.
Should be single syllables to speak. Nil, bit, pair, few.
15 is a few few. 12 is few nil.
But for more than 2 digits, I think we need something better than just spewing digits. I would propose a vowel suffix for the higher digits. Y, O, and A. So 63 becomes few-y few few, and 64 is Bit-Y or “bitty”. Don’t need to say the nils after. 65 is Bitty bit. 255 is FewO FewY few few, followed by 256 which is Bitta.
Alright, you have had enough. Pass me the blunt.
Hey how many fingers were you born with? 10 probably. And now you know why we use base 10.
Although to be fair the Babylonias loved them some base 60. See also time keeping and degrees in a circle.
OP is clearly a troll:
In fact, trolls traditionally count like this: one, two, three . . . many, and people assume this means they can have no grasp of higher numbers.
They don’t realize that many can be a number. As in: one, two,three, many, many-one, many-two, many-three, many many, many-many-one, many-many-two, many-many-three, many many many, many-many-many-one, many-many-many-two, many-many-many-three, LOTS.
Terry Pratchett - Men at ArmsBut everyone knows camels are the better mathematicians, having always used base infinity.
Lack of fingers was another big spur to the development of camel intellect. Human mathematical development had always been held back by everyone’s instinctive tendency, when faced with something really complex in the way of triform polynomials or parametric differentials, to count fingers. Camels started from the word go by counting numbers.
Terry Pratchett - Pyramids
One of us is high as fuck and I don’t think it’s me.
I am high actually, genuinely thought it made perfect sense lmao
I bet a lot of things make sense to you when you’re high, sharkfucker420
Are we trying to outmath the Danes or what is going on?
Mathematically this works just like our number system, your just not used to it
