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?
In: 2249
Inherently bases are just a way of writing numbers down. To make an analogy, I am typing this using the Roman alphabet with 26 letters. I could equally write the same words using the Greek alphabet with 24 letters, or the Cyrillic alphabet with 33 letters. Each letter has a sound meaning, so I could write English using one of those other alphabets, and it would communicate the same basic meaning. The meaning is not dependent on the writing system. The same applies for mathematics. I can write numbers using conventional Arabic numberals in base 10, but I could equally write them using Roman numerals, or use some other notation system. The actual properties of the numbers and how they work mathematically does not depend on how the numbers are written. Indeed the concept of algebra is based on the idea that the value of a number is not important, but the relationship between them is, so we write numbers using letters to indicate that the number in question could have any value.
Latest Answers