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Polynesians May Have Invented Binary Math

Posted by samzenpus on Monday December 16, 2013 @10:44AM from the original-number dept.

sciencehabit writes "How old is the binary number system? Perhaps far older than the invention of binary math in the West. The residents of a tiny Polynesian island may have been doing calculations in binary—a number system with only two digits—centuries before it was described by Gottfried Leibniz, the co-inventor of calculus, in 1703."

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Re:"Discovered" would be more appropriate by PIBM · 2013-12-16 10:55 · Score: 5, Funny

I'm sorry for you! If you had all of your fingers, you'd make it to 1023!
Re:There were 10 types of ancient societies by Mr+D+from+63 · 2013-12-16 11:02 · Score: 5, Funny

I thought they invented polynomials.
Re:How is this news? by JustOK · 2013-12-16 11:10 · Score: 5, Funny

There was a Mayan tribe that went around naked. The men used base 21 and the women base 22

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rewriting history since 2109
Re:"Discovered" would be more appropriate by mugnyte · 2013-12-16 11:31 · Score: 5, Funny

That's called thumb's-complement - still in IEEE committee, but quite handy.
Re:"Discovered" would be more appropriate by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-16 11:34 · Score: 5, Funny

So you are always negative when good looking women are around..... Sorry for you.
Re:There were 10 types of ancient societies by Mateorabi · 2013-12-16 16:01 · Score: 5, Funny

No there are 10 types of people:
Those that understand binary
Those that don't
And those that don't realize the joke is base-3.

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