Re: OT: Number bases (WAS: Constructed Computer Architectures (Concomps?))

On Mon, 9 Feb 2009 21:38:28 -0800, Rebecca Bettencourt <beckiergb@...>
wrote:

>I've also heard of a base 2i that avoids the arbitrariness of
>representing complex numbers. It was proposed by Donald Knuth in 1955,
>apparently.
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quater-imaginary_base
Why stop there?  2i is a square in the Gaussian integers, and you get an
even sleeker representation by going to its square root, base -1-i, and only
using digits 0 and 1.  (Not base 1+i, though, that one doesn't represent
everything.)

Alex