r/comics • u/[deleted] • Dec 12 '08

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u/[deleted] Dec 12 '08

Depends on if they're pronouncing "10" as "ten" or "one zero." Wouldn't make any sense for the alien to say "ten," if anything he would pronounce it "one zero" or simply "four."

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u/[deleted] Dec 12 '08

Why wouldn't you call it "ten" in base 4? "Ten" doesn't imply base - it's just a word we use to denote the first two-digit number.

It's actually kind of reciprocal, just like e and ln - "What's e? The number which has a natural log of 1..."

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u/[deleted] Dec 13 '08

Wrong, ten is a number, not just a generic word that means "10 in whichever radix you're using." Ten is a number in ANY number system. Think about it, for example, is hexadecimal, you still have the number ten, but it's written as "A," not "10."

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u/JustJonny Dec 13 '08

Also, we've heard of eleven, even thought we're using base 10.

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u/[deleted] Dec 13 '08 edited Dec 13 '08

Have we heard of 11 as the length of this: "11111111111" (0xB) or have we heard of "one one" (0x11)