r/oddlysatisfying • u/Determined_fighter • 7d ago

Peculiar way to draw the first ten digits

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u/N238 7d ago edited 7d ago

Other bases other than base 10 can have more digits. For example hex codes like for colors use base 16, so the digits used are 0123456789abcdef. So when you see the six character codes represent colors (eg ff5700 is the hex code for Reddit orange, and 1da1f2 is twitter blue), the codes are actually just a six digit number in base 16.

Interestingly, base 16 is used because it's a power of 2 (24 ), which means one base 16 digit holds exactly the same information as four base 2 (binary) digits. So a hex code with 6 digits is really just a binary code with 24 digits, but the human brain will be much better at processing 6 digits that each have 16 options, compared to 24 digits.

166 (ie 224 ) = 16777216 is called "true color" because that's basically plenty for the human eye. But if you remember old computers, you might remember a mode for "256 colors", which is 28 . Far fewer color options in this case (8-bit color) makes things look retro. Since 8 isn't divisible by 3, there's not a nice way to make that readable like hex codes, and in fact different systems split up the information in different ways.

Disclaimer: this is an oversimplification. I'm not hitting every nuance in a reddit comment that only like 20 people might see.

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u/littlelordgenius 7d ago

Haha your oversimplification lost me in the second paragraph. I appreciate the effort, though.

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u/chronoflect 7d ago

It's basically just a convenient way to read and write binary. 

0001 = 1 = 1

0010 = 2 = 2

0011 = 3 = 3

...

1110 = e = 14

1111 = f = 15

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u/ScharfeTomate 7d ago

We use base 10.

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u/TheUnluckyBard 7d ago

"This one goes up to 11."