[HN Gopher] Irrational Base Number System (2000)
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Irrational Base Number System (2000)
        
       Author : vector_spaces
       Score  : 21 points
       Date   : 2022-08-31 04:25 UTC (18 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (everything2.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (everything2.com)
        
       | svat wrote:
       | Better articles (IMO) at Wikipedia:
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-integer_base_of_numeration
       | 
       | Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio_base
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-standard_positional_numera...
       | has a long list.
       | 
       | An interesting one: base 2i https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quater-
       | imaginary_base -- this was introduced in one of the papers Donald
       | Knuth wrote in college.
        
       | asimpletune wrote:
       | The most efficient number system is base e, ie ratio of number of
       | digits that exist to placeholders needed to represent certain
       | numbers.
       | 
       | The most efficient integer is actually base 3, which also
       | explains why ternary logic puzzles are so elegant.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | jonhess wrote:
         | > which also explains why ternary logic puzzles are so elegant.
         | 
         | Could you elaborate on that?
        
       | etothepii wrote:
       | The bigger issue seems to be what a digit is. In a "traditional"
       | base system the digits represent a linear spread between base^n
       | and base^{n+1}.
        
         | joe_the_user wrote:
         | Yeah, from this I think any irrational base is going to be
         | either (uncountably) redundant or incomplete.
        
       | tromp wrote:
       | A bad idea that still merits discussion about the ways in which
       | it is bad...
        
         | qsort wrote:
         | It's literally equivalent to the evaluation of a polynomial in
         | a point. It's not even an idea, it's just notation. There isn't
         | even any meaningful sense in which it's "good" or "bad".
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2022-08-31 23:00 UTC)