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As the telephone/ascii queries have tapped a cache of teckie knowledge amongst verbivores, could someone please explain how to count in octal? Here is the puzzle: a two-handed alien counting with his fingers discovers that 15+5 = 22. How many fingers has the alien on each hand? Answer: 8 total, 4 on each hand. (15+5=22 in octal)
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Carpal Tunnel
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octal (base 8) representation uses the numbers 0 thru 7 and each "digit" represents sucessive powers of 8; thus,
127 (octal) = 7 x 8^0 (= 7)
+ 2 x 8^1 (= 16)
+ 1 x 8^2 (= 64) = 87 (decimal)
in your example, 5 + 15 = 22
translates to 5 + 13 = 18 in decimal
thinking about this in terms of successive powers of the base is transportable to binary, hexadecimal, base-13 or any other basis -- those of you familiar with Douglas Adam's "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" will be comforted to know that 6 times 9 *does* equal 42... in base-13!
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Carpal Tunnel
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Anna,
May I have some of whatever you took for your "tense"ion
headache, please?
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Carpal Tunnel
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I suppose I should be happy that you're not complaining about proctalgia (just to refocus on words).
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Pooh-Bah
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Does want to hazard a guess at Douglas Adams' reply when asked why he chose the number 42?
I'll leave you to stew for a couple of days while I am in foreign parts.
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Carpal Tunnel
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oh, I know that Adams claims it was random (and mostly harmless)... he just doesn't want us to think that his subconscious works in base-13 -- which would explain much. 
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Carpal Tunnel
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>>I suppose I should be happy that you're not complaining about proctalgia (just to refocus on words).<< I am not afflicted with proctalgia, thank you; I don't expect to ever need the services of a proctologist.  I suppose you should be happy if you don't, either. However, your first post in this thread gave me rapid-onset acalculia. Darn--can't quite justify using acupuncture here!
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Carpal Tunnel
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>>Anna, May I have some of whatever you took for your "tense"ion headache, please? I'd be glad to share, Jackie, but I'm afraid we're gonna need something stronger here. 
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old hand
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Tsuwm. . .just one question. . .
what??!?!!
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Pooh-Bah
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Another good question.
Why??!?!!
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OP
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Thanks for the mental pandiculation. Perhaps more a cognitive caracole?
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Tsuwm. . .just one question. . .
what??!?!!
Another good question.
Why??!?!!
these may indeed be good questions, but out of context they lack a certain... focus?
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>Thanks for the mental pandiculation. Perhaps more a cognitive caracole? you're feeling fatigued and drowsy... and you're moving like a snail? are we flogging a dead horse?
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>Thanks for the mental pandiculation. Perhaps more a cognitive caracole?< >you're feeling fatigued and drowsy... and you're moving like a snail? are we flogging a dead horse?< selling poor grade heroin??  ;) lol
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Carpal Tunnel
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>>>Thanks for the mental pandiculation. Perhaps more a cognitive caracole?<<<
Um, I think perhaps if you substitute capriole for caracole, you get more of a direct opposite of pandiculation. Though I can't be sure that's what was
intended.
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>if you substitute capriole for caracole, you get more of a direct opposite of pandiculation<
That's perfect! Thanks :)
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stranger
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Presumably four per hand is a minimum.
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Pooh-Bah
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>out of context they lack a certain... focus?
I was wondering why questions often start with a "w". Not sure its worth starting a new thread.
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Pooh-Bah
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> Does anyone want to hazard a guess at Douglas Adams' reply when asked why he chose the number 42?
In the interview that I heard, he said that he'd been trying to think of the ultimate answer to the ultimate question in his book "The hitch-hickers' guide to the galaxy" and thought that 42 was a pleasant sort of number - the sort of number you could take home to meet you parents. So not a bit octal.
Since then I found a Douglas Adams webpage which listed several versions of his answers. I suspect we will never know the real one!
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>Presumably four per hand is a minimum.<
Fill us in on your thoughts on this puzzle.
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Welcome, nounish!
Gosh, hope we don't verb you! (Ref. past thread!)
I do believe I know the answer to your puzzle, but mindful of a long-ago chastisement, I won't post my guess. Yet.
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>>I was wondering why questions often start with a "w".<<
Well, questions starts with a "q", ack-shu-al-ly! Ee-yow!
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>Well, questions starts with a "q", ack-shu-al-ly! Ee-yow<
lol
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good one, Jackie :-)
rut-roh, screen... you're acronymizing. *L*
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>you're acronymizing
aaarrrrgggh! (don't mind me, just a bit of arghizing 8)
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>>arghizing<< Tsuwm, does that mean you wear argyle socks??
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>>Presumably four per hand is a minimum<<
That's a long enough wait. The answer please?
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Who said that aliens have the same number of fingers on each hand?
Bingley
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enthusiast
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Bingley, it does not matter! Just the sum of the number of fingers is important here.
Let me add a quotation (from AWAD-archives) about ...counting in base 20
Arithmetic is being able to count up to twenty without taking off your shoes.
Mickey Mouse
Ciao
Emanuela
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Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. To quote from screen's original post: In reply to:
How many fingers has the alien on each hand? Answer: 8 total, 4 on each hand
It seems to me that the alien has 4 fingers on each hand rather than 6 and 2 or 3 and 5 is an unjustified assumption as is that there is any necessary link between the number of fingers the alien has and the base it uses for counting, and even if there were any link, how do we know that the alien has not had any fingers amputated?
Anyway, Tsuwm has already explained how to count in octal, so what else are we supposed to be solving?
Bingley
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I'd just like to throw in a couple of hard facts before we get any further carried away: 1) all aliens encountered to date have had four(4) digits on each "hand"; (2) most cartoonists have admitted to being victims of alien abduction.
thank you for your attention,
ron obvious
hanger 51
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<<Anyway, tsuwm has already explained how to count in octal, so what else are we supposed to be solving?>> Quite right. Next puzzle please. (Do you have any idea how hard it was not to write: "who can testify that the said alien... counting with 8 such fingers....") (anything you say can be given in evidence) next. ron obturate
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Pooh-Bah
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Looks like Tsuwm still isn't convinced!
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quite right! i've just refined my theory. -anne elke
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Walt Disney sees to agree on four fingers.
Check Mickey's "hands."
Re Adams and 42 ... I wonder how old was he when he wrote the book.
wow
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I wonder how old was he...
In, ah, which base....?
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I wonder how old was he...
In, ah, which base....?
In plain old every day math like in answer to the question :"How old are you."
Ok, Maverick, nobody likes a smarta** ... oh, wait! Around here we do!
wow
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Plain old everyday math--wow, you did type that on your computer-- which of course is digital-- but uses hex as short hand, and but might act as if the world was in base 64-- but uses ascii for the keyboard-- which can be expressed in octal? So plain old every day math-- which base is that? just because you have a bias towards base 10... And don't think this is a new fangled computer thing-- the egyptian pyramids were build using binary for the really big numbers and calculations! (the weird stuff i know! )
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