Dear Long Live Yorke

[speedz99 145]

I don't think you saw what he did there

Hmm.

[Balloon guy 158]

So you now how the number nine is the 'magic number' and when you hold up all your fingers and pull down the one you want to mulitply by nine the fingers on your left give you the tens and the fingers on your right give you your singles.What would the magic number be if we only evolved with 8 fingers?With 12?

[RodReynolds 87]

So you now how the number nine is the 'magic number' and when you hold up all your fingers and pull down the one you want to mulitply by nine the fingers on your left give you the tens and the fingers on your right give you your singles.What would the magic number be if we only evolved with 8 fingers?With 12?

And what if 12 was prime? lol, that would be HILARIOUS. I'd know a few cranky mathematicians, that's for sure.

I don't think you saw what he did there

I don't think I see what he did there either.

Hmm.

I echo these sentiments.

[Actuary 3]

Hmm.

I don't think I see what he did there either.I echo these sentiments.

I have the toughest time communicating lately; but I'll try.He was starting the chain of potentially hilarious posts where each response makes an incorrect presumption... ah.. I suck at explaiing...Something like:"Hey, remember that boy who used to live across the street who played with our son?""Jimmy"?"No, the kid had freckles""Jimmy didn't have freckles""Arrrg. I know. But the kid who used to live across the street, he had freckles"

[LongLiveYorke 38]

So you now how the number nine is the 'magic number' and when you hold up all your fingers and pull down the one you want to mulitply by nine the fingers on your left give you the tens and the fingers on your right give you your singles.What would the magic number be if we only evolved with 8 fingers?With 12?

I don't think any. The trick (which you just taught me, by the way, and is awesome) is based on the idea that multiples of 9 add up to 9 (ie 9*5 = 45, 4+5 = 9).I don't think you could do the same thing with 8 fingers.

[El Guapo 8]

I don't think you saw what he did there

Yeah, I didn't think that was all that tricky.

[chrozzo 19]

Yeah, I didn't think that was all that tricky.

hi guapo!where u been?

[nutzbuster 7]

I think I saw this. It was Fermat's last unsolved eqution that stated x^n + y^n is not equal to z^n for n>2. To solve it he ended up using some theories about euclidean spaces developed at the same time by some really young Japanese genius math student who committed suicide. It really was a good documentary because I saw it years ago and still remember it. The equation was written in his Fermat's note book that was filled with a bunch of genius mano one could prove it. But Fermat had written in the margin of his note book that he knew this equation was valid but the proof for it was too long to include in the pages of the notebook therefore he chose to omit it, lol.I think it was a documentary by NOVA on PBS.

YES!Even my wife found this facinating. If anyone ever runs across this in the future, watch it. It is amazing.

[runthemover 39]

Dear Schnookims,How come it took this long to realize that Michael Cera is kinda like a male Ellen DeGeneres?

[SlapStick 0]

How much do they pay for new prime numbers?

[hblask 1]

I don't think any. The trick (which you just taught me, by the way, and is awesome) is based on the idea that multiples of 9 add up to 9 (ie 9*5 = 45, 4+5 = 9).I don't think you could do the same thing with 8 fingers.

But if we had 8 fingers, our number system would be octal, so 7X6 = 42base10 = 52base8, so the magic number would be 7 (try it, it works). I suspect it's true, and could probably do a proof, that, for any number system in base X, the "magic number" is X-1. So if you assume that our number system is based on the biology of our hands, then the magic number is always 1 less than the number of fingers we have.Of course, it may be that we chose base 10 as the standard for some other reason, such as it's relationship to orders of magnitude of things we typically count in the real world. I'm going with the fingers theory, though, since it's the closest countable thing we have. But if we had two fingers on each hand, base 4 probably wouldn't be very practical, and we may need to choose octal anyway.

[hblask 1]

How much do they pay for new prime numbers?

You don't get paid, but you do get your name in the math history books:http://www.mersenne.org/I did this for a while, but it kept crashing my computer (this was about 7 years ago on an old computer). Now that you reminded me, I may try it again on my Linux machine.

[LongLiveYorke 38]

But if we had 8 fingers, our number system would be octal

Duh. I'm so stupid. Okay now let me really think about the question.

But if we had 8 fingers, our number system would be octal, so 7X6 = 42base10 = 52base8, so the magic number would be 7 (try it, it works).

BRILLIANT!!!!

Of course, it may be that we chose base 10 as the standard for some other reason, such as it's relationship to orders of magnitude of things we typically count in the real world. I'm going with the fingers theory, though, since it's the closest countable thing we have. But if we had two fingers on each hand, base 4 probably wouldn't be very practical, and we may need to choose octal anyway.

I highly suspect it's only because of our fingers. It's really strange how ingrained the concept of base 10 becomes and how natural it seems.And I'm pretty sure you're correct with the N-1 thing. Here's why. N-1 is one less than N (duh). When multiply N-1 by 2, it's two less than 2N (also duh). The point is, though, that the number we multiply N-1 by is the amount we need to add to the last digit in order to get up to N. For example, in base 10, 9*4 = 36, so the last place is 6 and indeed 6+4 = 10. In more mathy lingo, we see that:x (N-1) Mod N = xN -x Mod N = -x = N-x, so clearly x (N-1) Mod N +x = N, sox(N-1) Mod N + x = N. In other words, if we multiply N-1 by some number, we get that number less than N, which is the key to the finger trick.So, if I pick x (x between 0 and N), I will move down the xth finger. So, I will have x-1 fingers up to represent the first digit and N-1-(x-1) = N-x fingers for the second digit. The idea is that now in Base N, we write things as a + b*N + c*N^2 +d*N^3 +... etc. So, it is clear that Nx-x can be written as (x-1)N + (N-x). One can confirm that this is in the proper notation described two sentences ago because 0<x<N. Hence, the answer in finger notation is x-1 and N-x, which, as we described in the previous paragraph, gives us the proper finger trick and completes the proof.This whole thing turned out to be really cute, actually.

[vbnautilus 48]

I highly suspect it's only because of our fingers. It's really strange how ingrained the concept of base 10 becomes and how natural it seems.

Yep, that's why they are digits.

[LongLiveYorke 38]

Yep, that's why they are digits.

And suddenly things started to make a lot of sense.

[Balloon guy 158]

This whole thing turned out to be really cute, actually.

And if we took off our shoes, we could do hexidecimal, by applying your toes with letters A-HNow that I have that established, I see the "This little piggie went to market" in a whole new light.

[hblask 1]

We had our weekly staff meeting this morning, so I had more time to think about this idea of a "natural" base. So what would our number base be if we had clubs for hands instead of fingers (assuming we could still develop technology where we'd care about counting)? Certainly binary is not practical, because even common numbers can become a lot of digits pretty quickly.My theory is that it would be either 7 or 8. In speech class they tell you that you can only give the audience 7 ideas at a time (with some variation based on difficulty) before you lose your audience. So I think there is some fundamental property of the brain that is "seven-ish". Ten seems to work OK, but that may be just because we're used to it. Would base 7 be somehow more aesthetic? Would more people like math?

[qyayqi 11]

We had our weekly staff meeting this morning, so I had more time to think about this idea of a "natural" base. So what would our number base be if we had clubs for hands instead of fingers (assuming we could still develop technology where we'd care about counting)? Certainly binary is not practical, because even common numbers can become a lot of digits pretty quickly.My theory is that it would be either 7 or 8. In speech class they tell you that you can only give the audience 7 ideas at a time (with some variation based on difficulty) before you lose your audience. So I think there is some fundamental property of the brain that is "seven-ish". Ten seems to work OK, but that may be just because we're used to it. Would base 7 be somehow more aesthetic? Would more people like math?

the yakuza are remarkably okay with switching to base 8.

[hblask 1]

the yakuza are remarkably okay with switching to base 8.

I didn't know what a yakuza was, so I looked it up on Wikipedia, and decided I don't want to be one:

Yakuza in prison sometime perform pearlings: for each year spent in prison one pearl is inserted under the skin of the penis.

[El Guapo 8]

I didn't know what a yakuza was, so I looked it up on Wikipedia, and decided I don't want to be one:

Gives a whole knew meaning to pearl necklace. Or does it?Also, what is the point of that?

[qyayqi 11]

A Yakuza, if sent to jail, will sew a pearl into his penis for two main reasons: 1. Loyalty - obviously if a Yakuza is in jail they probably did something illegal that was part of the lifestyle they're coming from. Inserting a pearl, at the rate of one per year, shows that the Yakuza is not forgetting about where he comes from, and that he will remain loyal to his clan even through bars. 2. His Woman - the second reason a Yakuza will add a foreign object into his penis is for his woman. With the pearls in his penis he can make up for years of lost time; the pearls will act as added stimulation during intercourse, giving the woman much more pleasure.

[hblask 1]

2. His Woman - the second reason a Yakuza will add a foreign object into his penis is for his woman. With the pearls in his penis he can make up for years of lost time; the pearls will act as added stimulation during intercourse, giving the woman much more pleasure.

If I were a woman, I don't know what would be more exciting than a fingerless man with a criminal record and a lumpy penis.

[Balloon guy 158]

We had our weekly staff meeting this morning, so I had more time to think about this idea of a "natural" base. So what would our number base be if we had clubs for hands instead of fingers (assuming we could still develop technology where we'd care about counting)? Certainly binary is not practical, because even common numbers can become a lot of digits pretty quickly.My theory is that it would be either 7 or 8. In speech class they tell you that you can only give the audience 7 ideas at a time (with some variation based on difficulty) before you lose your audience. So I think there is some fundamental property of the brain that is "seven-ish". Ten seems to work OK, but that may be just because we're used to it. Would base 7 be somehow more aesthetic? Would more people like math?

That would possibly mean we would only have had 8 Commandments, so we could totally covet our neighbor's house and wife.

[El Guapo 8]

That would possibly mean we would only have had 8 Commandments, so we could totally covet our neighbor's house and wife.

Hi Neighbor.

[Actuary 3]

A Yakuza, if sent to jail, will sew a pearl into his penis for two main reasons: 1. Loyalty - obviously if a Yakuza is in jail they probably did something illegal that was part of the lifestyle they're coming from. Inserting a pearl, at the rate of one per year, shows that the Yakuza is not forgetting about where he comes from, and that he will remain loyal to his clan even through bars. 2. His Woman - the second reason a Yakuza will add a foreign object into his penis is for his woman. With the pearls in his penis he can make up for years of lost time; the pearls will act as added stimulation during intercourse, giving the woman much more pleasure.

I'm so glad I'm not fucked in the head