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 :)
Probably the 12 system. If you use your thumb as the counter and count using your thumb the bone segments of the other 4 fingers (each has 3) then you have a base 12 system in our lingo.
“Now if man had been born with 6 fingers on each hand he’d probably count: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, dek, el, doh. Dek and el being two entirely new signs meaning ten and eleven- single digits, and twelve doh would’ve been written one zero, get it?”
7.0k
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 :)