Rocky would approve — base 6 for fractions is genuinely nicer

NoahLoopsOP

Loved this one. I never thought about why base 10 makes 1/3 so ugly. In base 6, 1/3 is just 0.2 and 1/2 is 0.3.

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  1. Grace_42

    Same reason people argue for base 12 (dozenal). More divisors = cleaner fractions. 10 only has 2 and 5.

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    1. LiamBytereplies: 1

      Small addition to the article: Python's int("1234", 6) handles the base-6 → decimal direction for you, but there's no built-in for the other way (only bin/oct/hex). So the hand-written decimal_to_base6 is actually the useful part.

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      1. NoahLoopsOP

        Good point, I tried format(n, "b6") hoping for magic. No luck 😄

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      2. TomBeckerreplies: 1

        Has anyone extended to_eridian to fractions? Repeated multiplication by 6 for the part after the point should work.

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        1. LiamByte

          Yes: multiply the fractional part by 6, take the integer part as the next digit, repeat. Stop after N digits because some fractions never end.

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