4 ms·
They should probably learn HEX at age 9
by ck2 11y ago
They should probably learn HEX at age 9
- walshemj 11y agoBack in the 70's (UK) I remember doing non base 10 maths at about that age plus basic set theory much more useful than rote leaning your times table.
- PeCaN 11y agoDid that in the US in the mid 2000s, though spent hardly a week on either IIRC. Something like base 20 Mayans, base 60 Sumerians, and base 2 computers. Do math in each and convert them to/from base 10. I think that's been dropped from most US elementary school curricula now, bit of a shame.
- Zikes 11y agoWas base 60 Sumerians accompanied by cuneiform, by chance? I got to learn some of that in a World History course in high school, which was pretty fun.
- schoen 11y agoI believe it was introduced as part of some New Math curricula. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Math https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Math Richard Feynman was pretty harshly critical of this in his stories of working as a textbook reviewer. I really appreciated that my elementary school did it, but I had a sense that most students didn't quite understand the significance (or remember it afterward if they weren't into computer programming). I think it has a lot of potential value in terms of understanding what place value is and where a place value system comes from. When I've tried to teach programming, I've found that most people who aren't already programming enthusiasts don't remember the binary system or say they never learned it at all. Edit: the Wikipedia article I linked to also has several examples of people making fun of non-base-10 arithmetic and kids being taught it in the New Math, including a song by Tom Lehrer!
- spike021 11y agoThe odd thing I've found in my experience is that hex is thought to be taught to everyone in grade school. None of the schools I attended from elementary to high school (in the US) taught hexadecimal. I learned that in my CS courses once I started college.
- khedoros 11y agoI remember doing some radix conversions before college, but with no particular emphasis on base-16. The same material in CS courses mainly focused on bases 2, 8, 10, and 16, of course.
- spike021 11y agoYeah, my CS courses covered 2, 8, 10, and 16 as well. I think one class used some other bases for a project, but I wouldn't say it was a particular focus.
- jameshart 11y agoBefore their Ath birthday?
- js8 11y agoYes, this actually reminded me of my plan to learn 16-times table, in hex.