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Why would aliens work in base10?


Looks like they had 3 fingers per hand, so base 6 seems a likely choice. 6 works great as its divisible by 2 and 3.

I wonder what base we would use if we (somehow) had a prime number of fingers. 2, 6, 30, 60?


> Looks like they had 3 fingers per hand, so base 6 seems a likely choice.

Depends how they use their fingers and whether they use other body parts. There is evidence for human cultures having ranged from 4 to 10, 12, 16, and 20 (technically there are higher ones but they usually have sub-bases in that range).

You can count to 12 on a single hand (24 on two hands) by pointing phalanges with the thumb for instance. Some native cultures had base 8 using the space between the fingers rather than the fingers themselves.


Opinion: Highly composite numbers make good bases.

2, 6, 12, 60, etc

Number of fingers doesn't matter, although you can shoehorn almost any base into them. For example, base 6 lets you count to 5 on one hand and use your other to coujt multiples of 6. This lets you count to 35 on two hands.

More info here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_highly_composite_nu...


etc: 360 is a useful number of days for a calendar system


But what you call base 6 they might call base 10

every base is is base 10...from a certain perspective


The ancient Sumerian number system was base 6. Our units of time are still based on that.

60 seconds, 60 minutes, 24 hours.


They may have 10 of something else...


Only on HN...


Given all the probing they do, they’re clearly after our best ideas.

They’ll be converting to imperial units and base 10 any day now.

Converting the flying saucers to coal will take a bit longer.




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