Saturday, August 07, 2010

Another Look Our Number System...

O.k. so the latest revised number system can be thought of as two sets of four plus one oddball for each set of four (0 and 5 being the oddballs). Practically:

0 1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8 9

the next item of interest is concerning consistency. if 0 is not an actual number and just a "place holder" then 5 should have a similar designation. Thus far, it does not. Furthermore, I haven't had enough time to come up with a way of dealing with such set up. So lets take it the other way - Let's say 0, like 5, IS a number and not any different except that it's zero... ?

Now, here's the neat stuff... consider the "space" between 0 and 1. Is that space part of 0 or part of 1? In a practical sense, as long as you're below 1 and above zero, are you still in the "zero zone" or are you in the "one zone". i.e. there's a space between each whole number. That space is either part of the number above it, or part of the number below it. You'll see why this matters in a moment... Lets say for example, the space is part of the number below it.
So our set begins directly on zero and is "part of zero" until you hit 1. from that point you're traveling in the zone of 1 until you actually hit 2. Think of this in a physical representation...
because the space between numbers is associated with the number below it, zero is actually (for all practical purposes) one. yes, zero is actually one. Well, extremely close to one - as close as you can get without being one.

The reason this oddity arises is because I'm dealing only with whole numbers - no decimals. I'm doing so because they are a better representation of reality. In reality there are no decimals. either something exists (represented as 1) or it doesn't exist (represented as 0 - or so we're lead to believe). Something can't half-exist - at least I can't imagine it thus far. So, I restrict the inquiry to whole numbers. O.k., back to dealing with the reality of the space between numbers issue...

In our first solution - associating the space with the number below it, we ended up with this strangeness of zero actually being closer to what we presently call 1. One good thing that this approach does is make 9 physically more like 10. I say this is good because it creates a likeness between the system and reality (10 fingers, 10 toes, etc.) So we could say 5 and 0 are representative of our thumbs and 1-4 and 6-9 are our fingers... Still zero being one isn't quite ideal, let's try the other way...
What happens if we associate the space between numbers with the number above it?
Well, 1 is akin to the real world i.e. 1 is actually 1, 2 is 2, etc. But, 9 is now 9 which makes our system less connected to reality... or does it? Let's consider zero.
Recall, zero is a number, not a place holder. This is so we don't have to do some undetermined tweaking of 5 to account for it's "zeroness". As such, zero would now consist of the space below it as well. Hmmm... so zero is now actually more like -1. For some reason I like that. I need to go think about this for a little while...

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