your age in different bases

[Lawless in Lotusland]

The chart attached may be of interest: http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~watrous/age-base.html. I personally like bases 11, 12 or 13, but I think anything but base 11 is unlikely to be too credible!

I was pondering that the chart doesn't calculate ages in bases 8 or 9 for those who want to be a bit older.

[ejm]

Credible or not, I'm quite fond of base16 for relating my age. I was particularly happy this year when on our neighbour's birthday, we discovered that we are the same age (except his age was in base10 and mine was in base16)

I was pondering that the chart doesn't calculate ages in bases 8 or 9 for those who want to be a bit older.

It's quite easy to calculate this without a chart. For instance, for someone who is 16 in base10, that is two groups of 8 so in base8, the person is 20, and in base9, it's just short of two groups of 9 so the person is 18 in base9 (at least I think I'm calculating those correctly).

I would think either of these new ages would be very handy for the base10 16 year olds who wanted to buy a bottle of wine for their parents' dinner party.

[Barbara]

It's quite easy to calculate this without a chart. For instance, for someone who is 16 in base10, that is two groups of 8 so in base8, the person is 20, and in base9, it's just short of two groups of 9 so the person is 18 in base9 (at least I think I'm calculating those correctly).

Your method works for 8, but not for 9. To calculate age 16 in base9, divide 16 by 9, giving 1 with 7 remainder, or age 17.

[Mats]

I'm not sure that I remember the math involved here, but, if getting a calculation right can actually make me younger, heck, I'm going to review those Grade 10 textbooks right now!!!!

[Lawless in Lotusland]

I'm not sure that I remember the math involved here, but, if getting a calculation right can actually make me younger, heck, I'm going to review those Grade 10 textbooks right now!!!!

I prefer to use this calculator which goes down to base 2: http://www.cleavebooks.co.uk/scol/calnumba.htm (although I'm not sure I understand the letters that appear in some calculations).

[Barbara]

I prefer to use this calculator which goes down to base 2: http://www.cleavebooks.co.uk/scol/calnumba.htm (although I'm not sure I understand the letters that appear in some calculations).

The letters are representing digits following 9. You count 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D... until you reach your base. For base 12, you count ...7 8 9 A(10) B(11) and then you reach 10 (12).

So my favourite number "twenty eleven" could be written as 2B. Or not 2B.