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Depending what your career path is could determine why you need this skill. Or you could just learn to do it in order to force yourself to think. And thinking is a skill we all need every day.
I'll be quick to admit that I have no idea what base 10, base 6 or base 12 is/are, but I learned to think critically in algebra and geometry class.
You should certainly know what base 10 is given it is the number system you use whenever you add, subtract, multiply and divide. You may not realize what it is named, but you should recognize that all of our numbers are base 10 and can be broken down this way.
1456 = 1 * 10^3 + 4 * 10^2 + 5 * 10^1 + 6 * 10^0 where the ^ are exponents.
If this were 1456 base 6 that would mean
1456 = 1 * 6^3 + 4 * 6^2 + 5 * 6^2 + 6 * 6^0
The number can be represented in any base with the proviso that you cannot use any number larger than the base in your representation, so the number above could not be base 4, for example.
In bases larger than 10, we use letters or other symbols to represent the numbers up to the particular base.
Which proves the point I was attempting to make. Much of the problem with math is that people have little if any understanding of the concepts. Now if you can't explain it better than that, something as basic as a 2-d graph and why it's needed, then it's little wonder why most folks don't know math.....
Good lord, did you not see the smile ?
That answer was in jest.
Base 10..what we count with 0-9
Other important bases:
Base 2..binary 0-1 (you've all seen 00110001111001 patterns)
Base 16..computer language 0-15 (0-9 and then A,B,C,D,E,F in computer code)..also called hex
Base 10..what we count with 0-9
Other important bases:
Base 2..binary 0-1 (you've all seen 00110001111001 patterns)
Base 16..computer language 0-15 (0-9 and then A,B,C,D,E,F in computer code)..also called hex
Just in case you were to become a Bee and wanted to count on your fingers.
12? A caterpillar?
(our kids are watching Top 25 School House Rocks and eating Pizza in the background here. )
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Real useful alternate bases tend to be digital (0, 1) octal (0 to 7), and hex -- 16 digits -- they are on the calculator on your (windows?) PC.
Just switch it to Scientific mode.
Different cultures have different base systems. The Mayans had a base 20 system. Other cultures have base 3 or base 5, etc. Back when I had to learn to make that calculation, it was long before computers were household items, so that couldn't have been the motivation. I remember a number of students complaining about useless knowledge. Maybe it wasn't an end in itself, maybe it was considered preparatory to algebra, or something.
Overall, there's gotta be a better way of introducing algebra than whatever's in the schools now Most people I knew in Middle School barely passed the course.
Base 16 is only used to make it easier to read and takes less space to represent binary numbers. The computer itself cannot interpret base 16.
Still, Base 16 is important to understand for programmers.
0xDEADBEEF
0xDEADBABE
0xBADF00D
Those are all important magic numbers in software debugging.
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