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A comment on 6174. Parent comment

Re:6174 by bee_rider on Tuesday January 16, 2024 @05:00PM (#39019739)
Base-10 isn’t inelegant, is it? I mean there are good arguments for 12 being better but it isn’t like 10 is prime or anything.

Happened across a neat comment yesterday that presents a defense of ten. Not 100% convinced but it is interesting to see pushback.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39000882

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Re:6174 by spenczar5 on Tuesday January 16, 2024 @06:13PM (#39020527)
Rational fractions will terminate only if the denominator’s prime factors are the base’s factors.

So for example, 1/2 = 0.5 and 1/5 = 0.2, but 1/3 = 0.333… and 1/7 = 0.142857….

1/4 = 0.25 works because the prime factors of 4 are 2 and 2… but 1/6 fails because 6 is infected by 3.

Now, base 12 has 2 prime factors (2 and 3) so it much any better than 10 really. But may I introduce base 30 (235)? Or perhaps base 210 will strike your fancy?

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Re:6174 by dr_dshiv on Tuesday January 16, 2024 @05:25PM (#39020003)
1+2+3+4=10

And you can swear by that, if you know what I mean.

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