HofmaimaierOct 26

Fictional

https://feddit.org/post/20764712

Show threadthewebroachOct 26
Both meters and seconds are units of Earth specific measures of space and time. Pretty sure at a cosmic scale god would give fuckall about how we measure and name our shit
Show threadFrezikOct 26

It’s neat to think about what units an alien civilization would come up with independently. Like the Plank Distance is fundamental to physics, so they’d probably have something for that.

Degrees Celsius is based on freezing and boiling point of water, so if they came up with a base 10 numbering system and water is key to their biology, then they’d probably come up with that.

A calorie is the energy needed to increase the temperature of 1L of water by 1C. A liter is a volume of a cube 0.1m on each side. The meter was originally ten-millionth of the distance between the equator and north pole (and subsequent redefinitions are based on that original measurement). They wouldn’t come up with the meter, and they wouldn’t come up with liters or calories, either.

Show threadVoterFrogOct 26
Hopefully they’d come up with a better numbering system than base 10. Base 10 is the worst part of metric tbh.
Show threadUruannaOct 26
Every base is base 10 dumdum
Show threadTheDoozer
That’s true. It should really be referenced by the number before 10 (e.g. Base 9).
Oct 27 at 12:34amWeb
Show threadscrolloOct 27

Woah, I had never considered that. To think, all these years I was on the side of “initial index is 1.” I’ve unknowingly been using “initial index is 0,” since I started using numbers.

oh-my-god-i-get-it-now.jpeg

Show threadmercOct 27
IMO it should be called “base 9+1”. It is a “base 10” system because each order of magnitude is 10x as big as the previous one. But, the key thing is to know which digit is the last one before you roll over.