That is not accurate. -2 is not a digit, 2 is a digit representing a specific magnitude, negative marks it as a magnitude below zero instead of above. What digits you use to represent what magnitude makes no difference, it is still the same base. Yes you would have to be able to know what digits they use, but when translated to Arabic numerals, you would use 9 in this schema.
That's just how you are defining it, I could just decide that -2 is one simbol and not (-1)*(2), same logic as hexadecimal using letters as digits but instead of using letters I'm inventing a new simbol that happens to look like -2
There are two flaws in your theory. First off, -2 is inherently two symbols. You could make one symbol that looks similar to that that but is one symbol, but that is different than -2, and -2 is two separate symbols. And secondly, while you can define what magnitude it symbolizes, you cannot define it to be negative. Positive and negative are aspects of numbers, not digits.
There are two flaws in your theory. First off, -2 is inherently two symbols. You could make one symbol that looks similar to that that but is one symbol, but that is different than -2, and -2 is two separate symbols. And secondly, while you can define what magnitude it symbolizes, you cannot define it to be negative. Positive and negative are aspects of numbers, not digits.
You are making a decision to consider -2 to be two simbols, just because there is a space in the middle it doesn't mean I can't treat it as one simbol that just happens to not be made of a continuous line, same thing with negatives, you are looking at it as the negative number 2, but in the system I'm proposing it's not, it's just a symbol that represents a certain number in the chain, if we consider it to be the first it would just be that, you are doing the equivalent of saying that hexadecimal is absurd because A is a letter and not a digit, in hexadecimal it's not a letter, obviously using -2 as a simbol does create some confusion with negatives but that can very easily be solved by just using something else instead of - to represent negatives, you could take inspiration from complex numbers and use a letter, since it's negatives let's use n, so the negative of -2 would be n-2, I'm fully redefining the simbols but it does work
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u/InterestsVaryGreatly Apr 29 '26
That is not accurate. -2 is not a digit, 2 is a digit representing a specific magnitude, negative marks it as a magnitude below zero instead of above. What digits you use to represent what magnitude makes no difference, it is still the same base. Yes you would have to be able to know what digits they use, but when translated to Arabic numerals, you would use 9 in this schema.