We should count in base four

Submitted ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Hjalamanger@feddit.nu⁩ to ⁨showerthoughts@lemmy.world⁩

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?

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Comments

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Plopp@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
One of us is high as fuck and I don’t think it’s me.

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- sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I am high actually, genuinely thought it made perfect sense lmao
  
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  - intensely_human@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I bet a lot of things make sense to you when you’re high, sharkfucker420
    
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IggyTheSmidge@kbin.social ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
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, manymany-many-one, many-many-many-two, many-many-many-three, LOTS.
Terry Pratchett - Men at Arms

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- Hjalamanger@feddit.nu ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yes, I’m indeed a traditional Swedish troll. Here I am, I’m the one to the right with red hair on this image:
  
  Me
  
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  - wabafee@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    No idea why but this reminds me of
    
    Image
    
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- I_Fart_Glitter@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  But 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
  
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tobogganablaze@lemmus.org ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
But why? And if we would change the base, why to 4 and not something much more useful like 12?

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- DarkDarkHouse@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Base 12 gang
  
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- loobkoob@kbin.social ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Base 12 being the best is probably why AI keeps trying to give people six digits per hand.
  
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- xigoi@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Base 6 is the most useful.
  
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  - Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    But THIS one goes to 11.
    
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whaleross@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Are we trying to outmath the Danes or what is going on?

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- Hjalamanger@feddit.nu ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Mathematically this works just like our number system, your just not used to it. The
  
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imaqtpie@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Lemmings really do be built different. You would never see this kind of raw mathematical genius on reddit

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DavidGA@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Why not use “triple” for three, which actually does mean three.

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- CatsGoMOW@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Because we also have words like quadruple, quintuple, etc which would break his theory. lol
  
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  - hddsx@lemmy.ca ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    How about treble?
    
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- Hjalamanger@feddit.nu ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  If you ask someone for “multiple” of something their almost always going to give you three of that thing (or nothing). In that context multiple is just three and as @CatsGoMOW@lemmy.world pointed out, if I use triple I could as well keep going with higher numbers (quadrupole etc)
  
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  - RainfallSonata@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    If someone asks me for “a few” I’ll give them three or four. If someone asks for “multiple” I’ll give them a handful and ask if that’s enough.
    
    I don’t know where in the world this theory is coming from, but here, two would be “a couple” and three+ would be “a few.” Not that “a pair” (never just pair) and multiple aren’t used in other contexts, but you wouldn’t use pair and multiple in the same context. A pair is specific, multiple is an estimate.
    
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  - Plopp@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    If you ask someone for “multiple” of something their almost always going to give you three of that thing (or nothing).
    
    Huh? I’ve lived a long time and that’s not something that feels familiar to me. On the other hand I do have multiple dollars in my bank account and that equation checks out.
    
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  - My_friend_Johnny@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    The victim was shot multiple times. I don’t see this as 3. I’d see this as 5 or 6 times
    
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Etterra@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
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.

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antlion@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
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.

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- WhyAUsername_1@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Alright, you have had enough. Pass me the blunt.
  
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- Hjalamanger@feddit.nu ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Smart, I like the shorter words. And for the suffixes your basically picking based on the digits position from the left? So you suggest the suffixes:
  
  Place suffix
  
  1 place
  
  4 place
  
  16 place Y
  
  64 place O
  
  256 place A
  
  I believe we’d have to continue a bit longer and maybe also have a suffix for 4th place? I would suggest using both prefixes and suffixes, maybe in this order:
  
  Place suffix prefix
  
  1 place
  
  4 place A
  
  16 place A A
  
  64 place O A
  
  256 place Y A
  
  1024th place O
  
  4096th place A O
  
  … And so on, you can probably see how you could keep going in order to express any number up to 16777216. After that we might have to start using two letter prefixes/suffixes like “la”, “ro” or whatever
  
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BreadOven@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Dumb.

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Place	suffix	prefix
1 place
4 place		A
16 place	A	A
64 place	O	A
256 place	Y	A
1024th place		O
4096th place	A	O