31 May
2010
31 May
'10
6:02 a.m.
On Sun, May 30, 2010 at 8:05 PM, Phill Harvey-Smith
<afra at aurigae.demon.co.uk> wrote:
Rich Alderson wrote:
That's why I was plugging the Fred Pohl essays.
The 1st essay teaches you to count in binary on your fingers. IT also
covers basic arithmetic this way, which I confess I do not use.) It is
remarkable, it works well and I still occasionally use it, mainly for
counting things, such as keeping score on a fencing match. I can tally
up to 31 on each hand.
(And believe me, however many times people have accused you of being a
weird nerd, it doesn't compare to the expression on their face when
they *look* at you after you tell them you were counting in binary on
your fingers, and keeping separate tallies on each hand. Sheesh.)
The 2nd article suggests an approach for naming and speaking such large numbers.
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There is a language in the Amazon Basin, I believe Pirah?, (and this is
not like the "1,2,many" urban legend--there are write-ups in linguistic
journals) which works in base 19. ?Each finger joint, the back of the
hand, the wrist, the forearm, the upper arm, and the shoulder are the
counting points.
Dunno if this has already been mentioned but....
If you use a finger down as 0 and a finger up as 1, it's possible to count
to 1023 on your fingers.....
Phill.
--
Phill Harvey-Smith, Programmer, Hardware hacker, and general eccentric !
"You can twist perceptions, but reality won't budge" -- Rush.