this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2024
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.

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and every fifth digit is just put in an odd place

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[–] SorteKanin@feddit.dk 24 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Base 1 does make a huge difference though. In base 1, number length is linear with respect to the size of the number - i.e. the number 10 needs 10 tallies. For any other base, the number length is logarithmic, i.e. the number 10 needs just 2 numerals in base 10 and still only 4 in base 2.

This is actually important in theoretical computer science, since computers would be much slower if you don't assume an "efficient encoding" of numbers, i.e. a logarithmic sized encoding. Base 1 is not efficient.

[–] PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

It is logarithmic size, it's just the special case of log~1~. The implication being the higher the base, the more efficient the encoding.

Edit: ~1~ is supposed to be subscript, but it's not showing properly in my app. Idk what it looks like for others

[–] SorteKanin@feddit.dk 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Log base 1 is undefined, no? It's like division by zero.

PS: it looks like subscript.