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**investor** · 11-19-2008, 08:44 PM

Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia
Okay, it's looking like base-6 is winning out.

The creatures (fungi) can sprout limbs as needed. Because they spend most of their time standing still, Bing decided to make them favor a tripedal system. (Note how three legs is the minimum number of legs a chair needs in order to be stable, even on uneven ground.)

So with three legs, the creatures would favor three arms. With three arms of two fingers each, that leads to base-6.

They can sprout three fingers if they need to do things like write and craft, etc. Why not base 7? If you go by that, with the three lower limbs, three upper limbs, yes, we might think 6.

But that doesn't mean they would, necessarily. Limbs + Head = 7, for instance.

Or, if they looked skyward, how many moons does the world have? 4? 12? 16? 7?

But then, would they really need a number system? There are languages that only have the words for "one", "two", and then "more"; admittedly, they're not really developed, but...

11-19-2008, 08:44 PM	#11
investor Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 485 Senior Member	Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia Okay, it's looking like base-6 is winning out. The creatures (fungi) can sprout limbs as needed. Because they spend most of their time standing still, Bing decided to make them favor a tripedal system. (Note how three legs is the minimum number of legs a chair needs in order to be stable, even on uneven ground.) So with three legs, the creatures would favor three arms. With three arms of two fingers each, that leads to base-6. They can sprout three fingers if they need to do things like write and craft, etc. Why not base 7? If you go by that, with the three lower limbs, three upper limbs, yes, we might think 6. But that doesn't mean they would, necessarily. Limbs + Head = 7, for instance. Or, if they looked skyward, how many moons does the world have? 4? 12? 16? 7? But then, would they really need a number system? There are languages that only have the words for "one", "two", and then "more"; admittedly, they're not really developed, but...
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