https://xkcd.com/2835

Alt text:

So what do we do when we get to base 10? Do we use A, B, C, etc? No: Numbers larger than about 3.6 million are simply illegal.

    • 22rw@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      According to this article, the factoradical system gets efficient for numbers larger than 20!, but i guess this here is a shining example of less is more is less

      • Sanyanov@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It begins to improve related to regular base-10 after, well, 10!, but it takes a while to recover for lower base numbers before that.

      • Spuddaccino@reddthat.com
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        1 year ago

        The idea is, each number is expressed as a sum of n factorials, with n being the number of digits in the number post-conversion. You start with the highest factorial that you can subtract out of the original number and work your way down.

        1 becomes 1, because 1 = 1!, so the new number says "1x(1)".

        2 becomes 10, because 2 = 2!. The new number says "1x(2x1) + 0x(1)".

        3 becomes 11, because it's 2 + 1. The new number says "1x(2x1) + 1x(1)".

        21 becomes 311: 4! is 24, so that's too big, so we use 3!, which is 6. 3x6 = 18, so our number begins as 3XX.
        That leaves 3 left over, which we know is 11. The new number says "3x(3x2x1) + 1x(2x1) + 1x(1)".

      • quindraco@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I appreciated them correcting Randall's bad alt-text math - he was off by a power of ten!

  • notabot@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Good grief, it's far too early in the morning for this sort of thing. My brain hurts now.

  • Classy@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    0 = 0

    1 = 1

    2 = 10

    3 = 11

    4 = 20

    5 = 21

    6 = 100

    101, 110, 111, 120, 121,

    200, 201, 210, 211, 220, 221, 300, 301…

    Amidoinitrite