Ten or two?

[klwilliams]

How would you pronounce this:

There are only 10 kinds of people in the world:
those who understand binary,
and those who don't.

Comments

[larryhammer]

I don't. I let others read it.

---L.

[semy-of-pearls.livejournal.com]

*chuckle* that's an old one.

I would pronounce the digits as 'ten' like it reads.

[janni.livejournal.com]

I think I'd pronounce it one-oh. :-)

You don't pronounce it.

[learnteach.livejournal.com]

You read it. Doesn't work said. But it's a good joke!

[hrj.livejournal.com]

I think it only works as a joke if read as text. Reading it aloud requires you to resolve the notational ambiguity, destroying the joke. That's my prescriptive answer. My descriptive answer is that, given that any context-neutral interpretation will strongly default to the base-ten reading, I would start reading as "There are only ten kinds of people in the world ..." and then stop when I got to the second line recognizing the joke.

[windrose.livejournal.com]

I have that on a t-shirt. 8)

[acanthusleaf.livejournal.com]

Those who do were smart enough to also build these lovely user interfaces, so I don't have to keep track of the ones and zeros. I like that.

[fionnbharro.livejournal.com]

Erm...

Since we read in English or other Natural Languages (in the Linguistics sense, so no, mathematics doesn't count), we properly read that as "There are only ten kinds of people...".

This is why textbooks and journals use the '2' subscript when displaying binary numbers (generalized to the 'b' subscript when displaying numbers in base 'b').

So, yes, while it's amusing, it's not nearly as witty as something that uses impeccable notation.

Neener.

[martianfencer.livejournal.com]

You *are* cranky today!

[kahnegabs.livejournal.com]

chuckle!

Reminds me of teaching bases in 5th grade (new) math! I don't think they do that so much anymore. Too bad.

[catagon3.livejournal.com]

I had to teach bases to my mother when I was in 5th grade. She had gone back to school to get her accounting degree and had to take math and a computer class in 1977. My 3-yrs younger brother and I had to pretty much teach her "new math" with sets and number lines and stuff...

[scotica.livejournal.com]

I don't know about "new math", but my parents were both math majors in college in the 1950s (Dad doubling with Electronic Engineering), and as a result one of the car trip games for my two older brothers and I was competitive translating of numbers between binary and decimal. We thought it was fun, and, if you will pardon the boast, despite being the youngest, I didn't always lose. (This started before I started school, and my eldest brother is only three years older than me.)

(So you could say I inherited my geekiness ;-)

[kahnegabs.livejournal.com]

I went back to college in '72, and took "Basic Structures of Mathematics and Algebra," which turned out to be more learning about bases and place value than anything else. I was intrigued to discover all kinds of things that had never been taught in any math class I'd experienced before. I loved it! I finally understood what I was doing.

[martianfencer.livejournal.com]

Is that the class for which the textbook was "Mathematics, a Human Endeavor" by Harold Jacobs?

[kahnegabs.livejournal.com]

Possibly. I don't recall.
I guess it's been too long ago.
LOL

[martianfencer.livejournal.com]

Well, I stole it from you. Fun book.

[(Anonymous)]

Hah! The joke's on me then.

[martianfencer.livejournal.com]

I say "one zero", which alerts the listener, but it's better than not transmitting the joke!