16.3.08

I'm 100000



I've gained one more digit in binary today. It'll be another 32 years before I get another and it took 16 to get this one. The fact that 2 X 2 X 2 X 2 X 2 = 32 makes 32 a better number than 30 (or 31 for that matter). Interesting note on a couple of alphanumerical systems L = 30 and B = 2 so LB = 32. I would have thought - different alphabet, different amounts for each letter. The Mayan representation (3 dots over 2 lines) is counter intuitive to how you might imagine it to mean: the top dot represents 20, the next two dots represent 2 and each line represents 5. Notice how the Roman, Egyptian and Babylonian (bottom right) are so similar.

The merging of culture and mathematics.

Thanks to all my birthday wishers and especially my wife and spawn who are making the day super special. You're a kind bunch.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Frankly, it is all Chinese to me. My friend Kim at Art4Life did a art project with a binary code. It is on her blog. Here is the link if you want to check it out.

http://art4life.wordpress.com/2008/03/05/their-work-in-progress/

UP said...

Ah binary. That brings me back to my early days as a computer repair/programmer and having to hand key in the loader program in order to load the program from paper tape. Fortunately the loader program wasn’t long.

I haven’t thought about binary code for a long time. Thanks for reviving good memories and some funny stories.

Zaak said...

Good to see you here again UP. Paper tape! That's from another age. I remember when computers backed up onto cassette tapes, but that's as far back as I can remember.

Dawn, I checked out your friend's binary project. Looks cool, but I don't know ASCII, so it's a mystery to me too.

Anonymous said...

Soooo....does this mean it was your birthday? Congrats on gaining another digit. I've heard that takes skill :-)