Aug 11 - Zero and One

 

For people who live in the computer age, we don't know binary code, a base-two numerical system.   Binary code is a two-symbol system, using the binary digits 0 and 1 to represent a letter, digit, or other character in a computer or other electronic device. Let's jump to what it might look like. How To Write  “I Love You” In Binary Code It is fun to express your love to your special one with binary code. Here is the binary code of “I Love You”: 01101001 00100000 01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 The following is the meaning of every translation: 01101001 – I  01100111 – L  01001111 – O  01010110 – V  01000101 – E  01111001 – Y  01001111 – O  01010101 – U A binary joke, with explanation: There are only 10 types of people in the world - those who understand binary, and those who don't. "The pun is that the binary translation for decimal digit 2 is ‘10’. Not decimal TEN, but a binary one-zero. Only people who understand binary code would know that, everyone else would be thinking there is a mistake in the joke." There are lots of more these jokes.

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Aug 10 2022 - From Zero to Nothing

 

Did you know that the Egyptians counted in base 12 and not our base 10?  If I knew this, it has been lost until yesterday when I found out how our day became 24 hours. They counted their knuckles on their fingers and used their thumbs as placeholders.  That's how we got to our units of time - the Egyptians divided the day into smaller parts based on the interval between sunrise and sunset.  Using their duodecimal (base 12) and sexagesimal (base 60) systems, here we are. Wikipedia says that historically units of time in many civilizations are duodecimal.   We know how common twelve is - 12 inches in an imperial foot, 12 troy ounces in a troy pound, 12 items in a dozen.  It says that the number twelve is a superior highly composite number and superior to base-10.   So how did we come to using base-10? It comes down to writing down large numbers. Early number systems have one thing in common. They require someone to write down many symbols to record a single number and create new symbols for each larger number. The Ancient Egyptians represented 300 with three coiled ropes.  Positional systems allow for the reuse of the same symbols.  It was Indian mathematicians in the 7th Century who perfected the decimal positional system.  The big breakthrough was the number 0.   That started with the Sumerian culture 5,000 years ago, moved on to the Babylonian empire, and then to India via the Greeks.   Zero and nothingness became a big deal in the 20th century even though the philosophical notion of nothingness was developed very early in Indian thought and in cosmogonical myths - "And the earth was without form, and void."   The 19th and 20th century explored nothingness at great length. On the one hand, zero is a bona fide cardinal number, yet on the other it is linked to ideas of nothingness and non-being.  How curious this seems that the philosophical aspect arises: our understanding of zero is tied to questions concerning the status of non-being.  Where would we be philosophically if we'd continued in the duodecimal system?  The Egyptians believed in everlasting joy rather than death.  So I don't think they worried about nothingness. In fact their gods imbued every day with meaning and were considered one's close friends and benefactors.  No existentialism for them. I seem to have endless pictures of tree bark.  Here's a sample collage.

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Bees Come Done

We think we're the only ones who understand that zero is less than one.  Livescience.com (which brought the exploding rotten fish art story) says that dolphins, African gray parrots and nonhuman primates understand "zero".  And that bees are considered to understand zero - with a brain of less than a million neurons  (compared to our 86 billion neurons). 'The researchers set up two cards, each of which had a set of symbols on them, like triangles or circles. Then, they trained a group of the bees to fly to the card with the lower number of symbols. (The bees quickly learned what the humans wanted them to do to get their delicious, sugary rewards). The trained bees were then shown a card that was empty versus one that had symbols on it. Without any prior training, the bees flew more often to the empty card — thereby demonstrating that they understood that "zero" was a number less than the others, according to the study, which was published Thursday (June 7) in the journal Science. Although they flew more often to an empty card than to one that had one symbol on it, it became easier for them to differentiate when the symbols' card increased in number. For example, they more often flew to the zero when the other card had four symbols than when it had one, according to NPR.' Today's pictures show our newest restaurant in Grimsby - Casa Toscana.  The beautiful turreted house in the middle of the downtown section used to be a real estate office and now is a lively patio/restaurant.  Luca Vitali is pictured with Therese de Grace, the chef previously with The Good Earth.  Now we can savour fine food along with the finest extra-virgin Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar imported from his mother's farm in Tuscany. I planted the little herb garden for him out in front of the porch.