From: George W Gerrity (g.gerrity@gwg-associates.com.au)
Date: Fri Jun 22 2007 - 10:07:49 CDT
On 2007-06-22, at 23:38, JFC Morfin wrote:
> Thank to everyone who commented. Very usefull.
> I understand what you say: ask the math people. Seems quite
> reasonable as no system has been devised yet.
Nor will it be: see below.
> Since I started investigated that issue I found several
> applications. Also that bitridecimal - that Greek and Arabic cand
> support - and quadrisextadecimal have a huge future in computers
> and natural processors (nature seems to be quadrary?).
As a retired Computer Scientist who has published on Computer
Arithmetic and Computer Design and someone well versed in Number
Theory, I can assure you that there is absolutely no future for
(human-readable) representations in bases larger than 16, even
assuming that future internal representations do not use numbers
based on a power of 2 (the smallest computationally-useful Prime
Number), but some power of another small Prime Number, such as 3, 5,
7, 11, or even 13. Reading base 64, for instance, as groupings of 4
hex digits per each quadrisextadecimal digit, is just as (in)
comprehensible as replacing each of the 4 hex digits with one digit
in the range 0–9,a–z,α–ω,ד–א, for example.
It seems to me that a lot of effort has been wasted in discussing
something that has no earthly and not even any theoretical use. Could
we drop it?
George
------
Dr George W Gerrity Ph: +61 2 6386 3431
GWG Associates Fax: +61 2 6386 4431
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