I’ve started reading a lot of sci-fi and the humans always attempt to communicate with aliens using prime numbers, but if they use a counting system that _isn’t_ base10, would the prime numbers still make sense?
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This is *why* they use prime numbers to communicate.
I’m unclear on how it would work electronicaly, but in person, I’d show them the symbols for 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17 etc, and then expect them to show me *their* symbols for the same things.
We have a universal truth (more or less) that is easily expressed and understood *independent* of the language or symbols used. That lets us swap symbols.
It’s kind of like holding up an apple, and saying “apple” slowly, only the aliens probably don’t know what an apple is, nor do they know I’m not saying “red,” or “round” or “fruit” or any of several other options. But the know perfectly well what prime numbers are.
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