I dislike these pseudo-scientific claims about alternative number systems and methods of paper and pencil arithmetic:<p>> Because of the tally-inspired design, arithmetic using the Kaktovik numerals is strikingly visual. Addition, subtraction and even long division become almost geometric. The Hindu-Arabic digits are an awkward system, Bartley says, but “the students found, with their numerals, they could solve problems a better way, a faster way.”<p>I think the students can be praised for having come up with simple to understand and write number system that corresponds to the conventions for counting in Alaskan Inuit language, and it seems appropriate to capture these notations in upcoming Unicode standards.<p>However, spending time learning base 20 arithmetic has obvious disadvantages that the article ignores. The times tables, memorized in grade school and fundamental to paper and pencil calculations, are now four times larger. Base 20 is not a popular notation for numbers. One important advantage of the number system (Hindu-Arabic) that most of the world uses is that most of the world uses it. I grew up with inches and degrees Fahrenheit and had to learn the metric system to pursue my science education. I'm glad I didn't have to learn how to count as well. We shouldn't make it harder for these kids to enjoy the rest of the world's books, journals, and internet resources about math and science.
Last year someone on HN linked to a sample set of problems from the International Linguistics Olympiad. I really enjoyed working through a few of them and found it an approachable challenge despite having no training in linguistics. About 2/3 of the way down there's a problem on Inuktitut Numbers, which I recommend attempting before reading the attached article if possible: <a href="https://ioling.org/booklets/samples.en.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://ioling.org/booklets/samples.en.pdf</a>
> Math is called the “universal language,” but a unique dialect is being reborn<p>It is not a unique dialect. It is just a yet another numeral system.<p>> Because of the tally-inspired design, arithmetic using the Kaktovik numerals is strikingly visual.<p>Ok, so is there any reason to think that it is better than other similar systems like the Mayan system? I am not even convinced that “strikingly visual” system is any better than our modern way to represent numbers in bases above ten using letters (…, 8, 9, A, B, …). If numbers look similar, you are more likely to mix them up.
> "The Alaskan Inuit language, known as Iñupiaq, uses an oral counting system built around the human body. Quantities are first described in groups of five, 10, and 15 and then in sets of 20."<p>So, sounds fundamentally like Mayan numerals?<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_numerals" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_numerals</a>
The examples listed feel contrived to get the best case results rather than the worst case.<p>I think the most interesting checks is with exponentials though? How does this represent e? Pi? Complex number rotations?
These are so neat. It seems like they would make arithmetic much easier!<p>If you ever played Riven, I think the Kaktovik numerals inspired the numbering system from the game.<p>Spoilers: <a href="https://lparchive.org/Riven/Update%2015/" rel="nofollow">https://lparchive.org/Riven/Update%2015/</a>
I find it interesting but unsurprising that learning a second base system makes you better at math, much in the same way as learning a second language as a child has benefits.
Kids invent numbering systems all the time. Usually they see the point of numbers very early on and use their fingers to count. But occasionally they're very creative.<p>I have 3 kids. I remember an instance where the middle one asked for candy. So I said "how much". And she got her box of marbles and stones she collected (quite a collection), and wanted that many.
Wouldn't extending the system to 25 make more sense? I understand that it started as a representation of their previous system, but it stopping before W on W seems counterintuitive.<p>No clue if that'd ruin the arithmetic benefits.
That's cool and all, but the computer aspect of this is it just got encoded into unicode and someone is making a font. Great for users of this system of course but ultimately not exactly the most exciting.
What I found interesting is that you could write these right-to-left and bottom-up, as long as you allow the top part to point in either direction, which makes the whole thing a lot easier. For example, 171:<p><pre><code> \ (1)
\/\ \ (60 + 1)
>
\/\ \ (70 + 1, add 10 to the right digit)
/ >
\/\ \ (171, add 100 to the left digit)
</code></pre>
Hopefully this makes sense, utf-8 will need to catch-up :)
The visual logic sure seems nice, and the test results seem to speak for themselves (would be interesting to see studies on its impact). But I can't help but feel that if we are going to introduce a new number system with a different base at all, then that base should be 12. It's a highly composite number, it's divisible by 2, 3, 4 and 6, meaning that 1/2, 1/3, 1/4 and 1/6 (and their multiples) all have finite-digit representations, which would simplify a lot of everyday calculations. Several pop science articles have been written about the case for base 12:<p><a href="https://www.scienceabc.com/eyeopeners/why-we-should-already-use-base-12-instead-of-base-10.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.scienceabc.com/eyeopeners/why-we-should-already-...</a>
<a href="https://gizmodo.com/why-we-should-switch-to-a-base-12-counting-system-5977095" rel="nofollow">https://gizmodo.com/why-we-should-switch-to-a-base-12-counti...</a><p>If we're happy to use 11 new symbols instead of just 2, we could even keep the ideas from this system of using ticks and sub-bases to make computations more 'visual'.
Sorry, but I don't understand the basis for the opinion presented by a couple of people that the Kaktovik numeral system is similar to the Roman one. Is that because both of them use short lines as the sole element to build digits/numbers?!<p>But Kaktovik is a positional system while Roman is not!
Could our computers handle it? Makes me remember the count by 5 system. In this case, the 4 sticks are connected into a W. And the tick across the 4 sticks becomes a bar on top. The bar on top can count from 1-4. And then it goes to the next digit. So instead of base 16, we have a base 20.
The decimal system is already based on the human body, most people are just not great at bending their toes one by one and find it convenient to have them covered by footwear. If you want a special symbol for one full hand, just use Roman numerals.<p>This reminds me of retro computing. Amiga or BeOS had some amazing concepts for the time, and quite possibly Wintel dominance was achieved by predatory tactics. It can be interesting to study old platforms and some enjoy creating new software up to this day. But if you limit yourself to these, don't expect modern living. At best you can hook up an old computer to a modern one as a thin client and fool yourself into thinking that harpooning a whale from a motor boat is traditional living. For whatever reason the world have move on and it's not possible for could have been possibilities to ever catch up with limited number of participants, since the rest of the world will also not stand still.
This is quite similar to Sumerian numerals and countless other tally-based numerals. I fail to see what's totally unique about this number system.
Looks like diversity for diversity's sake. An alternative number system that will never be widely adopted due to switching barriers. Cool. Whatever.
Sounds like typical SV hype tbh. Who needs to do number arithmetics anyway? Most math involves working with symbols (x, y, etc.) for which this number system is useless. And as for actual number arithmetics: calculators.