You ever see a dog that’s got its leash tangled the long way round a table leg, and it just cannot grasp what the problem is or how to fix it? It can see all the components laid out in front of it, but it’s never going to make the connection.

Obviously some dog breeds are smarter than others, ditto individual dogs - but you get the concept.

Is there an equivalent for humans? What ridiculously simple concept would have aliens facetentacling as they see us stumble around and utterly fail to reason about it?

  • ArumiOrnaught@kbin.social
    21·
    11 months ago

    .333… Is a third. That’s just a quirk of base 10. If you go to a different number system you won’t run into that particular issue.

    The most common other base people know of is binary. Base 2. So in binary the fraction would be 1/11 and then 1/11(binary)=1/3(base 10).

    I remember talk back in the day that base 12 is good for most common human problems. Some people were interested in trying to get people to switch to that.
    1/3 of 12 is 4.
    So 4/12=1/3=3.33333…/10

    .333… Is just the cursive way of writing 1/3.

    I still don’t “grasp” infinity. I’d recon you’d need an infinite mind to grasp infinity.

      • ArumiOrnaught@kbin.social
        4·
        11 months ago

        1/3 of 10 is 3.333…

        1/3 of 1 is .333…

        It’s like when people come to America and are surprised when tax isn’t included in sale prices. The .0333… you forgot to add on will get you in trouble with the universes math IRS.