Wednesday, 13 August 2008

Counting | How Number Base Affects?

Everyone can count. We have been taught to count since young.

The age to learn counting is getting younger. And it is now the norm even before getting to pre-school.

But there is something called the Number base that may be oblivious to us.

What is this Number Base?

The normal counting that we are exposed to is the so-called Base 10 counting, or Decimal Base.

Base 10 counting: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11,........

There are other base also.

Number Base 9 ?

Base 9 counting is: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, ........

Number Base 8?

Base 8 counting is: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, ......

Look at the counting pattern for the above 3 examples.

Count the quantity of the numbers before reaching the number "10".

For Base 10, this quantity is 10.
For Base 9, this quantity is 9.
For Base 8, this quantity is 8.

So Number Base defines the quantity of the numbers before the counting reaches the tenth unit.

There is, however, another number base that is commonly used. It is Base 16 !

Base 16?

Base 16 counting: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F, 10, 11, .......

Interesting? We ran out of numbers, so, we have to use the alphabetic approach to count. ( Base 16 is used widely in computers and digital electronics engineering ).

That's the beauty of math.
Never say "die".
Ran out of numbers, use others!
Ran out of methods, learn more and read on.... Thanks to this website "Maths Is Interesting!"

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