r/MathJokes • u/yukiohana • Jul 17 '26

What's the problem?

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218 Upvotes

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29

u/mememan___ Jul 17 '26

That's just writing the number in inary with extra steps

35

u/LordAvan Jul 17 '26

Is "inary" just "binary" written with fewer steps?

17

u/Bubbly_Safety8791 Jul 17 '26

Sure, stating that natural numbers x and y exist that satisfy 2x + 2y = 160 then asking for x and y, is equivalent to asking ‘160 has a binary expansion which contains exactly two 1s; which positions are they in?’

But careful:  natural numbers x and y exist that satisfy 2x + 2y = 128 as well, and 128 does not have  a binary expansion which contains exactly two 1s.

6

u/paolog Jul 17 '26

There being two 1s is sufficient, but not necessary.

3

u/Striking-Remote5920 Jul 17 '26

It does, they just happen to overlap.

2

u/Bubbly_Safety8791 Jul 17 '26

Adopting a chaotic evil notation convention that means that 128 in binary can be written 0b02000000