this post was submitted on 24 May 2024
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[–] whotookkarl@lemmy.world 7 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Yes, https://www.mathsisfun.com/numbers/bases.html has a bunch more examples to show why the base of the number system is always represented by 10, because 10 is a short hand we use for d1*b^1 + d2*b^0 where d is a digit between 0 and base-1, and b is the base. b^0 is always one and represents the first digit at the first position. b^1 is the base, so 1*b^1 = the base. And since 10 is 1*b^1 + 0*b^0 it represents the base in any number base system.

Another way to show the same thing with counting:

Base 10: 0, 1, 2, ..., 8, 9, 10, 11, 12...

Base 4: 0, 1, 2, 3, 10, 11, 12, 13, 20, ...

Any base: d1*b^0 , d2*b^0 , ..., d(b-1)*b^0 , d1*b^1 + d1*b^0 , d1*b^1 + d2*b^0 , ...

We assume a 1 in the 10's place and a 0 in the 1's represents 1,2,3,...,10 of something instead of 0,1,2,3,10 of something because from our perspective we learned numbers in base 10 with 9 digits, but the alien learned 10 means 4 of something in base 4.