A Mathematical Pun on Number Systems: Every Base is Base 10

Description

A simple cartoon depicts an alien and an astronaut on a barren planet with four rocks on the ground. The alien says, "There are 10 rocks." The astronaut replies, "Oh, you must be using base 4. See, I use base 10." The alien, looking confused, responds, "No. I use base 10. What is base 4?". Below the characters, a caption reads, "Every base is base 10." This comic strip is a classic mathematical and computer science joke. The humor lies in the double meaning of "10". The alien counts four rocks, which is represented as "10" in a base-4 number system. The punchline, "Every base is base 10," highlights the meta-joke that the representation of any base's value *in that same base* is always written as "10". It's a clever play on numeral systems that experienced developers who've worked with different bases (like binary, octal, or hexadecimal) would find amusing

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Computerscience CSFundamentals DeveloperHumor InsideJokes GeekHumor

Comments

Anonymous ★ Top Pick The alien isn't wrong; it's just that their definition of '10' is four integers ahead of schedule. It's a classic case of undocumented APIs between species

Anonymous ★ Top Pick

The alien isn't wrong; it's just that their definition of '10' is four integers ahead of schedule. It's a classic case of undocumented APIs between species
Anonymous

Still, it’s clearer than that analytics service that silently flips between milliseconds and microfortnights in its dashboard
Anonymous

This is like explaining to a PM why we can't just "make the API 10x faster" - technically correct statements that completely miss the underlying context of what's actually being measured
Anonymous

This perfectly captures why code reviews sometimes devolve into philosophical debates: 'Your variable naming is inconsistent!' 'No, it's perfectly consistent in my mental model.' When everyone's reference frame is self-consistent but mutually incompatible, you get the software equivalent of this comic - except instead of number bases, it's tabs vs spaces, or whether 'manager' should be a suffix or prefix in class names
Anonymous

If your team believes '10' is universally ten, check the parser - somewhere '010' just asked Kubernetes for eight replicas
Anonymous

In binary, those 10 rocks are 1010 - a perfectly round dozen for the bit-flipping elite
Anonymous

Pro tip: if you think every base is base 10, you haven’t debugged parseInt('08') in pre-ES5 JavaScript at 3am
@LeakyRectifiedLinearUnit 2y

based
@deerspangle 2y

Oh no, it's base 60 time
1. @ZgGPuo8dZef58K6hxxGVj3Z2 2y
  
  Say that using base 60
@theodolu 2y

What if they read from right to left?
@viktorrozenko 2y

Base 1 is the most superior base there is. Change my mind. You just can't do it. It's simply not possible. What are you gonna do? Count with your digits and shit. That's sad, really... 10 is just 1111111111 They've been playing us for absolute fools all this time
1. @purplesyringa 2y
  
  It's not base 1, really. Unary, yes, but not base 1
2. @endisn16h 2y
  
  base 14 is because it would be 'base d'
3. dev_meme 2y
  
  Some people forget that base 1 is actually used in real life and there’s some easy to recall examples 👀
@viktorrozenko 2y

What would be the difference, out of curiosity?
1. @purplesyringa 2y
  
  Base 10 has digits from 0 to 9, base 2 has digits from 0 to 1. Generally speaking, base n includes digits from 0 to n-1. Base 1 would only have a zero (not a one)
  
  @viktorrozenko 2y
  
  I knew someone would bring that up. However, it seems to me that that’s just the mathematical dogma. Realistically speaking, digits are made up so (especially in base 1) I can choose whatever the hell I want to represent digits. It can be 10 = ☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️ For all I care 😂
  
  @ZgGPuo8dZef58K6hxxGVj3Z2 2y
  
  Tell that to a civilization who didn’t discover 0 yet and have evolved to not assing “nothing” with “amount”
@glatavento 2y

Base-1 is different from binary, decimal or hexadecimal numbers. It's a bijective numeration system.
1. @qtsmolcat 2y
  
  Psssst those links don't render in most clients.... Instead, highlight the words you want to link, and select either "create link" or the overflow menu and "create link"
  
  @glatavento 2y
  
  Thanks!
@eternal_neophyte 2y

The rest of 6 are in spaceman's kidneys and this creature has xray vision
@Factorial 2y

Dont understand, explain pls
1. @affirvega 2y
  
  in the picture, robot does not understand that "4" means 10 in his base because he uses only 0123, like for example we wouldn't know that "A" means 10 in our base 10 because we only use 0123456789 and if you're using binary, for example. you'd call your base also base 10, because you only use 0 and 1 symbols, you don't call that base 2 same as us, we don't call our base like base "A", because we only use 0123456789 for numbers
  
  @Factorial 2y
  
  Got it 😁
  
  @affirvega 2y
  
  oh wow, that was my best attempt glad i helped
  
  @dsmagikswsa 2y
  
  Also one detail. that robot only have 4 fingers
  
  @affirvega 2y
  
  Haha that's nice
  
  @ZgGPuo8dZef58K6hxxGVj3Z2 2y
  
  Out of curiosity idk if this is documented anywhere but when did we “discover” that there are different bases? Was it perhaps before we even agreed on base 10? (Ik not the whole world did)
  
  @affirvega 2y
  
  probably when we noticed that different bases had different number of symbols
@callofvoid0 2y

huh?
1. @ZgGPuo8dZef58K6hxxGVj3Z2 2y
  
  Roman numbers
  
  @callofvoid0 2y
  
  X
  
  @ZgGPuo8dZef58K6hxxGVj3Z2 2y
  
  Thats 10
  
  @callofvoid0 2y
  
  4 rocks 10 rocks what are these together and roman number?
  
  @ZgGPuo8dZef58K6hxxGVj3Z2 2y
  
  Wdym XIV?
  
  @callofvoid0 2y
  
  look at the meme I don't get why the creature says those 4 rocks are 10 rocks
  
  @ZgGPuo8dZef58K6hxxGVj3Z2 2y
  
  Ohh you didn’t get that part? Sorry if I misunderstood you. Base 2 (binary 0,1) 0b10 = 2; //Base 2 Base 8 (0-7) 0o10 = 8; //Base 8 Base 10 (0-9) 10 = 10; Base 16 (0-9, A-F) 0x10 = 16; //Base 16 Because the largest symbol’s value is always one less than the “Base X” name it always carries one to the next significant digit. So if you use the base itself to describe the base it will in all bases result “10” in its own representation.
  
  @callofvoid0 2y
  
  I understand bases I just don't understand why the creature insists on being right about base 10
  
  @affirvega 2y
  
  like we have 10 numbers, right? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 the robot thinks he has 4 numbers, but for him it's written like 10 - 0 1 2 3
  
  @ZgGPuo8dZef58K6hxxGVj3Z2 2y
  
  I think he points out that the joke is stupid
  
  @affirvega 2y
  
  it's tecnical, and maybe stupid
  
  @ZgGPuo8dZef58K6hxxGVj3Z2 2y
  
  Well how did he understand what he meant if he doesn’t know about other bases
  
  @callofvoid0 2y
  
  it doesn't make sense
  
  @ZgGPuo8dZef58K6hxxGVj3Z2 2y
  
  Tbf it’s stupid I think the joke is he didn’t discover bases but then how can he understand the question
  
  @mmikita 2y
  
  if you mean “why 10 = 4”, it’s because it is in base 4: 0, 1, 2, 3, (10 = 4), 11, 12, 13, 20, 21… if you mean “why he thinks he’s in base 10 too”, it’s because 10 is the first “overflow” in any base, so 10 will actually equal the base number in any given base (hence the joke) for example binary: 0, 1, (10 = 2), 11, 100, 101… ternary: 0, 1, 2, (10 = 3), 11, 12, 20, 21, 22, 30… quaternary seen before, and so on upd: and the second part of the joke is that the digit that would be used to indicate “lesser” base by a “higher” base is missing in the base itself base 2 doesn’t have 2 base 4 doesn’t have 4 base 10 doesn’t have “A” from the perspective of base 16
  
  @callofvoid0 2y
  
  wow thank you
@ZgGPuo8dZef58K6hxxGVj3Z2 2y

Iirc they did not have a concept of 0 as a number

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A Mathematical Pun on Number Systems: Every Base is Base 10

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