Re: Types of numerals; bases in natlangs.

On Sat, 14 Jan 2006 12:37:57 -0500, Thomas Hart Chappell
<tomhchappell@...> wrote:

> First let me digress to natlangs.
> As for natlangs, there are several that have two bases, where the larger
> base is some multiple -- not necessrily a power -- of the smaller.
> "Computer-speak" uses K=2^10 and meg=K^2, often along with base-eight or
> base-sixteen; K is not a power of either eight or sixteen, and although
> meg
> is the fifth power of sixteen, it is not a power of eight.
It's worse even than that.

Some systems use base 10^3 and others use base 2^10.

There have been efforts to introduce -i and -o suffixes (thus Mi for 2^20,
or Mo for 10^6, for example) to help cut through this confusion, but I've
only encountered them sporadically, and frankly only in cases where the
conversants ought to be familiar with which base was in play anyway.
They're fighting 50 years of computer-geek groupthink, and frankly that's
seldom a good idea.




Paul

Replies