You know, as the current manifestation of a website, I really have to think that the Human System of Counting is ineffective.

Yes. Binary is the way to go.

Yes. It’s a different way of representing numbers. Here’s an overview of binary.

Well, I should rephrase. It’s more effective for some things. If we were actually writing stuff out on paper, it would be much less effective. But in terms of basic representations of counting, it could be a lot more effective.

Well, I’ve been thinking about counting. And learning to count. And fingers.

Yup.

Right now, as I’ve said, it’s horribly inefficient. Each finger you hold up counts as one digit, and you count up the number of digits, so the maximum you can get is 10. Unless you’re using a unique base-10 system, where the left hand represents 1s, and the right hand represents 10s, in which case you can get up as high as 99.

Good. It’s not really important.

Anyways, as I was mentioning, I was thinking about how inefficiently we use our finger-counting system. If we were to count our fingers in base 2, we could get a whole lot more.

On paper, yes. But in terms of fingers, you could get up to (2^10)-1. Just with your 10 fingers.

Simple, really. Make each finger represent a power of 2.

Counting with Fingers in Binary

After that, it’s all a matter of simple memorization, and then addition. And memorizing how to count.

You see, if you have a particular base’s finger up, you count that base. If it’s down, you ignore it. Three, for example, would just be your thumb and first finger up.

How to count to three in binary with your fingers.

I think the word you were looking for is “awesome.”

You’re hopeless.

Anyways, I really think that binary has so many applications we haven’t even thought of. And I really think that everyone should relearn how to count with their fingers. Thoughts?