Saturday, 2 May 2009

Counting Down With Base Eight

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Counting up is an easy task for anyone, even when the base is not ten.

You may refer to this link for counting (up) with base 8.

However, counting down may be slightly harder than normal, especially when dealing with another number base other than 10.

Let's try with base 8 for a start.

10
03 -
----
??
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Here a count down of 3 from 10 is needed.

How do you go about it?

Thinking of the way base 10 subtraction was dealt with, this is similar.
After all maths is the same. It is the technique that is important.

When you encounter a " bring back" from the upper (rightmost) digit to the lower leftmost digit, you will, for base 10, add a 10 to the "ones" digit.

Here, with base 8, you will do likewise, except that now it is adding the number 8 to the leftmost digit.

Thus, 0 + 8 = 8.

And 8 - 3 = 5.

10
03 -
----
05 (Answer in base 8).
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There is nothing difficult if you look at the technique or concept in counting up or down.

Maths is just playing with methods to resolve numerical issues.

The above is a good example. Hope you agree?

Have fun counting in other number base.
Cheers!

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