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I still wonder if so many people claim to hate mathematics because of the boring tasks they are exposed right at the beginning, like learning by rote the times
by Qem 4y ago
I still wonder if so many people claim to hate mathematics because of the boring tasks they are exposed right at the beginning, like learning by rote the times tables. Wish humanity had converged to a smaller base for its main number system, like 8 or 6, so the times tables would be trivial to learn. Perhaps more people would appreciate math that way, being saved from this learn by rote burden.
- qbrass 4y agoThere's still hope for binary. 0 * 0 = 0, 0 * 1 = 0, 1 * 1 = 1. Done!
- Qem 4y agoBinary sits in the opposite extreme, minimum times tables, but day-to-day numbers become unwieldily long too fast. Ten digit sequences are necessary to represent amounts equivalent to a decimal 1000. I think the balance is around halfway between 10 and 2, for bases that result both in reasonably short sequences to handle and easy to learn arithmetic tables.