Hacker News Reader

Comment by eyelidlessness | Hacker News Reader

> “the students found, with their numerals, they could solve problems a better way, a faster way”

> Base 20 is not a popular notation for numbers […] We shouldn't make it harder for these kids

So much of what you object to is that something they’ve found more intuitive and engaging isn’t what unintuitive disengaging stuff they’ll encounter. But developing intuition for math is far more valuable than developing conformance to how it’s supposed to be done. Who cares if that intuition is developed with some idiosyncrasy from what you consider normal? The math is math, the principles are consistent, the knowledge is transferable. Insisting they learn the same things a different way is totally arbitrary and counterproductive.

View on HN

I think parent's point is not cultural as you are implying but rather practical. Learning in a base that nobody uses could be easier today and an hindrance later.

I think, all in all, this should not be a big deal. For the gifted kid, they'll find a way to adapt and become the next Einstein. As for the ungifted, it might give them a better leg up and allow them to perform better than they would have, so it's probably a plus anyways.

Finger binary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger_binary :

> Finger binary is a system for counting and displaying binary numbers on the fingers of either or both hands. Each finger represents one binary digit or bit. This allows counting from zero to 31 using the fingers of one hand, or 1023 using both: that is, up to 2**5−1 or 2**10−1 respectively.

- "How to count to 1000 on two hands" by 3blue1brown https://youtu.be/1SMmc9gQmHQ

- "Polynesian People Used Binary Numbers 600 Years Ago - Scientific American" https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/polynesian-people...

What is the comparative value of radixes like Binary, Octal, andHexadecimal compared to Decimal (radix 10)?

Perhaps a radix like eπI would be more useful; though some amost-mystic physicists do tend to radix 9: "nonary" (which is actually ~ also radix-3).

List of numeral systems > By culture / time period, By type of notation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_numeral_systems :

> Numeral systems are classified here as to whether they use positional notation (also known as place-value notation), and further categorized by radix or base.

I always make a point of demonstrating finger-binary with the number 132. 4 will suffice, though.

Digital computing hardware design

Learning more than one base system, like learning more than one language, can only benefit the learner. Is learning binary, octal, and hexadecimal a hindrance? No, it's generally quite beneficial to understanding and offers many insights that are easily missed in base 10. Humans use a ton of different number systems and scales for all sorts of things, from time, to distance, weight, thickness, angles, and more. None of these things harm the learner.

> I think parent's point is not cultural as you are implying but rather practical.

I think this is exactly what I find distasteful in the original comment: Culture is ignored in favor of what is practical for someone other than a subject of the article.

I believe it is my comment that you find distasteful. Please reread my post, I didn’t intend it to be dismissive of the Inuit culture. I even stated that these new numeral glyphs should be included in Unicode. I believe this aids in preserving the Inuit culture and traditions.

I myself have taken over two dozen university level math courses at the undergraduate and graduate level. I don’t need to have number bases explained to me, but I have raised three kids and recognize the challenge of helping them attain proficiency in basic grade school fundamentals. This is what motivated me to make the comment.

Ironically, perhaps, is the fact that my own ancestry includes an indigenous people living at the arctic circle who faced and continue to face racial discrimination, loss of native lands, and forced changes to their way of life, the Sámi. [1]

[1] https://unric.org/en/sami-we-are-the-natives-of-this-country...

> cultural as you are implying

I… didn’t think that’s what I was implying. I didn’t think I was implying anything at all, I was pretty direct about my meaning.

I would take this a step farther and argue that being exposed to different numeral systems expands your understanding of math, similar to how different programming languages expands your understanding of software, or how different unit systems (e.g. natural units [1]) expands your understanding of science.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_units

Reply on news.ycombinator.com