Base 10 is great for humans, but -- for reasons dealing with the on and off energy states -- computers use a base 2 number system. With base 2, or binary, every digit represents a power of 2 and ...

That’s because, for a base-12 to work, we need to add two new symbols for 11 and 12 (remember, these are representations of numbers, and are not alphabetic; the number 12 is derived from having ...

Ndom, another language of Papua New Guinea, has a base-6, or senary number system. It has basic words for 6, 18, and 36 (mer, tondor, nif) and other numbers are built with reference to those.

Here's what I learned earlier this week. You may be familiar with the French numbering system, which has a base-20 aspect for certain numbers (apparently of Celtic origin). The numbers between 60 ...