Alice In Wonderland Easter Egg - "Base"-ic Math

Here's a tricky one. On about the third page of chapter two, Alice starts speaking out some bizarre equations...



"Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven is -- oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at that rate!"



Alice is correct. 4*5=12... when expressed in base 18. Bases are different standards by which numbers are measured. We count in base 10, computers count in base 2 (a.k.a. binary). HTML colors are in base 16 (a.k.a. hexadecimal, like 1F(b16) is 31(b10)). So anyway, following this pattern...



4*5=12 (b18)

4*6=13 (b21)

4*7=14 (b24)

4*8=15 (b27)

4*9=16 (b30)

4*10=17 (b33)

4*11=18 (b36)

4*12=19 (b39)

4*13=1A (b42) (or about 32(b10) short of 20). The equation falls apart here. Alice will never get to 20 at this rate. :)





User Rating: 7.1 7.1/10 with 1822 votes Contributed By: eric-at-bibliopile on 12-05-2000 Reviewed By: Webmaster

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