5 ms·

Why are powers of ten arbitrary but not powers of two?

• ifdefdebug 10y ago
  We, humans, like powers of ten because of our ten fingers - when counting with the fingers, every time we reach a multiple of ten, we need to shift and start over. So maybe others don't have ten fingers, and they prefer a different base for counting. On the other side, powers of two are related to doubling/halving things - which should be a much more universal concept than shifting after ten.
• Retric 10y ago
  From a physics standpoint it's easier to make transistors using powers of two. Unless your dealing with things vastly outside of our temperature range that seems fairly universal.
• jerf 10y ago
  Two is the first positive-integer power that makes sense and is actually useful; "powers" (really the singular would do) of 1 are much less useful. Non-positive-integer powers are also wildly less useful than integer powers. (Yes, I know about the exceptions, I'm quite a fan of funny bases myself. But that's still a true statement. Don't let the tiny exceptions buried in an overwhelmingly large pile of common cases bedazzle you too much.)