r/mathmemes • u/TheHarcker • Nov 21 '20

All bases are base 10.

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u/[deleted] Nov 21 '20

What about base 1?

8

u/btween3And20chrcters Nov 21 '20

Base 1 is just counting with sticks, like I for 1, II for 2, III for 3, IIII for 4, and so on. Given that, as you would only have 1 symbol, you wouldn't be able to write 10, so it wouldn't be base 10.

It would be base 1 universally, well, not literally "1" but the symbol they used to represent it.

3

u/byteflood Nov 21 '20

mmh what weirds me out is that it depends really on your definition of base. For example: If you allowed only digits with values greater or equal than 0 to less than 1 then only 0 remains as a digit so you could only represent 0. If in the definition you say it must have always at least the digit 1then it would work.

2

u/btween3And20chrcters Nov 21 '20

Yes, I was thinking of that also as I wrote my comment earlier. Base 1 is really weird to think about, at this point I'm not even sure that it's possible, just as base 0 isn't.

3

u/belabacsijolvan Nov 22 '20

I guess the numbers go 0, 00, 000, 0000, 00000, etc. So my comment was bullshit.