Tuesday, January 02, 2007

A Base-ic Joke

KK sent me a link to a math joke today, and that link led me to some others, and boy, did I have fun!

Here's one I particularly liked:

Q: Why do mathematicians confuse Halloween and Christmas?

A: Because OCT 31 = DEC 25.

(Explanation in the Comments.)

3 comments:

bjkeefe said...

OCT 31 means "octal 31;" i.e., some number represented in base 8. DEC 25 means "decimal 25;" i.e., some number represented in base 10.

Expanding: You know what (decimal) 25 means: two tens plus five ones, for a total that we ten-fingered types call "twenty-five."

The octal version means: three eights plus one one; i.e., 24 + 1 = 25.

Which reminds me:

The world can be divided into 10 groups: those who understand binary notation, and those who don't.

billie said...

it's all greek and pagan greek at that- to me :)

Anonymous said...

Do you think if I read this joke on newsprint it would seem more funny?

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