Hello.

I am currently inventing a language, and have created a base 4 number system for it. Unfortunately, I am horrible with numbers, even in decimal. So it was a hard slog. But I finally got there.

It would be great if I could know of any practical applications quaternary has (if any), so I can incorporate it into the language and make it more naturalistic. Thanks.

  • TerminalEncounter [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    Quartenary is kinda like how our DNA works I guess.

    4 is a square number and highly composite (although it’s right smack dab at the start of the number line so perhaps it’s not that surprising).

    Apparently quarternary has some uses in Hilbert curves, although how I dunno.

    Perhaps the world they’re from has 3 moons? New moons being 0.

    • spitz@lemmy.mlOP
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      1 year ago

      Well this civilisation was from Earth, just not somewhere that exists any more. Like Atlantis. So that probably rules the moon theory out. And I don’t even vaguely understand the rest of what you said haha.

      • TerminalEncounter [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        Highly composite numbers are useful cause they have a lot of factors! That’s why the Babylonians and us use 60 for minutes and seconds. It makes dividing really simple, how much is 2/5 of 60? Why it’s 24 (no fractions) etc. Being a square number is just interesting. I bet quarternary would have funky repetitive fractions. Hilbert curves are just some space filling fractal thing, apparently they use quarternary at some point in analyzing or generating them.

        • spitz@lemmy.mlOP
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          1 year ago

          I’m still struggling to convert base 4 and decimal in my head, so I might just stay in my lane and take it slow 🤯