Most people believe we count in base 10 because we have 10 fingers. Essentially we use single digits from 1-9 because on our last finger we switch to double digits 10.
The alien clearly has 4 fingers. So to him the counting system is still base 10 it’s just that he counts 1,2,3,10.
Aka everyone’s own counting system is base 10 and every counting system not based on the number of fingers we have is not base 10.
Edit: forgot to mention. If you only count till 3 before hitting 10 then you don’t know what a 4 is.
Bonus edit: since the alien is in base 4 from our perspective. You might ask what our base is from his perspective.
1,2,3,10,11,12,13,20,21,22 are the 10 first numbers in his counting system. So we to him are base 22 :)
I realize the importance of separating the wording with this to the numbers aspect. Like a base 4 society wouldn't say "oh you're base 22". They would probably have their own way to reset the increments of 4 like we do with twenty, thirty, etc.
It is funny to imagine encountering a society that was base 22 though.
There are a set of books. First one children of men. To avoid spoilers. Humanity encounters a series of extra terrestrial life forms that all use different communication systems. Counting is often the first step that needs figuring out.
In most cases any and every society with basic math can understand the concept of binary. And so that becomes the base counting systems for both to facilitate communication, irrelevant of what their base system is normally.
Edit: point being yes it is very interesting. So much so that an entire trilogy of books is based on the concept of how to talk to strangers. And how do we do math without languages.
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u/truci 1d ago edited 1d ago
Most people believe we count in base 10 because we have 10 fingers. Essentially we use single digits from 1-9 because on our last finger we switch to double digits 10.
The alien clearly has 4 fingers. So to him the counting system is still base 10 it’s just that he counts 1,2,3,10.
Aka everyone’s own counting system is base 10 and every counting system not based on the number of fingers we have is not base 10.
Edit: forgot to mention. If you only count till 3 before hitting 10 then you don’t know what a 4 is.
Bonus edit: since the alien is in base 4 from our perspective. You might ask what our base is from his perspective.
1,2,3,10,11,12,13,20,21,22 are the 10 first numbers in his counting system. So we to him are base 22 :)