Subject: Re: periodic hexadecimal reminder

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2001 19:41:41 -0000

My first attempt to send this message didn't work for some 
reason.

mark@k... wrote:

> And no, I don't think we should change the default 
> base. I can't think of any advantage to hexadecimal outside of 
> computer work and a few specialized related settings (the same can 
> also be said for fibonacci base and base-7 (the specialized settings 
> part)).

Incidentally, balanced ternary
( http://perun.hscs.wmin.ac.uk/~jra/ternary/ternary.html ) 
has its applications too.

But I'm not going to deal with weird bases. One suggestion 
noted was using base one. Well one actually can: "pano ju'u 
vei pa su'i pa su'i pa su'i pa su'i pa ve'o" that is 
"10 base (1+1+1+1+1)" or expressing the base in decimal 
"10 base 5" or expressing the base in binary "10 base 101". 
My point is that if one feels compelled to be unambiguous 
one can; pa is 1 in every base and adding 1's always gives 
the same number in any base, even if it may be written in 
different ways. One could allow a cmavo to be used so that 
one wouldn't have to write all those "pa su'i"'s, but I 
don't think that it is common enough to use a cmavo.

Regarding James Carter's suggestion of expressing the base 
by using the radix-1; that is easy to accomplish too: base 
two is "ju'i vei pa su'i pa ve'o"; base five, "vo su'i pa"; 
base eight, "ze su'i pa"; base ten, "so su'i pa"; base 
twelve, "fei su'i pa"; base sixteen, "vai su'i pa". 

However, I like the idea of being able to use dau - vai in 
the base directly: This makes base two is "ju'i re"; base 
five, "mu"; base eight, "bi"; base ten, "dau"; base 
twelve, "gai"; base sixteen, we don't have one. Since 
sixteen is the highest (relataively) common base (because 
of computers), I'd like to propose that a single cmavo be 
added which can be used as an R-expression for "ju'i" that 
indicates base sixteen. Considering that in base ten, 
sixteen is expressed as paxa. I've thought of using pa'a or 
xa'a, for this purpose. Since pa'a is already assigned that 
would leave xa'a as my suggestion.

I do think that consideration should be given to giving the 
numbers A - F rafsi.

There is one other mechanism I would like to see considered: 
a way to assign a sticky base, so that one could define a 
base at the beginning of a document or section, and have 
the later numbers interpreted as the base in question. 
Since, this wouldn't be a common operation, I don't think 
that a cmavo needs to be assigned for that purpose.

The most radical part of my suggestion is creating a new 
cmavo for use in ju'i to indicate base sixteen. I would not 
suggest allowing that cmavo to be used in base seventeen 
numbers; indeed my suggested cmavo differs from the other 
number cmavo by being polysyllabic. The rest is an obvious 
extension of already used mechanisms.