Since Hex (base 16) uses 0-9A-F, and (I'm assuming here) Base 17 uses 0-9A-G and so on. What symbols are used once 0-9A-Z are all used up.
+15
A:
There is no standard answer for your question. "Base 36" is coincidentally convenient to talk about because:
- Hexadecimal conventionally uses 0-9a-f, so it's "obvious" to keep going through the alphabet.
- The Roman/ASCII alphabet runs out of steam at 'z'.
- Base 36 (regardless of how you represent it) is mildly interesting from a Mathematical perspective because 36 has so many divisors.
However, there's no universally-accepted convention for what sequence of characters one might venture into after 'z'.
joel.neely
2008-11-06 23:28:09
Until you get to base64. That's fairly standardised.
Colin Mackay
2009-07-30 07:34:54
@Colin, I understood the original question to be about mathematical bases. The "base" in "Base64" doesn't really mean the same thing.
joel.neely
2009-08-17 22:40:38
Actually, it does. Base 10 merely means that you represent a large number by a string of characters over an alphabet of size 10. Base 16 is a representation of a large number by a string, with an alphabet of size 16. Base 64 is a representation of a file=large number as a string of characters over an alphabet of size 64.
MSalters
2009-10-06 11:30:38
+10
A:
Digital clocks (base-60) use base-10 numbers as symbols and separate them with a separator symbol (like ':'). This way you'd never run out of symbols!
yjerem
2008-11-06 23:28:39
+1
A:
I'd go for 0-9, then A-Z capitals, then alpha to omega in lower case. That gets you to 60. After that, I'd go with Jeremy's answer.
Simon
2008-11-14 09:15:49
+5
A:
The Babylonians used hexagesimal math with base 10 numbers in groupings to form base 60 digits for the various 60's places. (This is where we get all the base-60 math used in angles and time.) This is probably the oldest precedent for the method of creating some some form of base-N digit using base-10 numbers.
tletnes
2009-07-30 07:28:59
wow thanks - that's really interesting. I always wondered about the 60 but never enough to look it up.
Preet Sangha
2009-07-30 09:25:37
I believe that they didn't use 6 groups of 10 but 5 groups of 12. As with all really old math it has it roots in using our fingers. Left hand is the number of 12s. Right hand is 1 - 12. Place your thumb to index tip for 1, middle tip is 2 ..., thumb to behind the index first knuckle is 5, behind the index 2nd knuckle is 9. You can extrapolate the rest. You could really go up to 71 in this way before running out of fingers but I guess they decided to stop after the last full carry.
Dinah
2009-10-14 17:11:08
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagesimal#Babylonian_mathematics for the cuneiform digits.
tletnes
2009-10-27 05:26:37
+2
A:
The standard way to write IPv4 adresses can be viewed as a base 256 representation, where decimal numbers are separated by points.
starblue
2009-10-06 11:20:39
A:
chinese maybe? wikipedia says that there are 47,035 characters in the Kangxi Dictionary!
Gautham Ganapathy
2009-10-14 17:03:55
And the fun part is, data encoded in baseChinese can produce poetry as a side effect. ^_^
deceze
2010-06-04 04:30:13
A:
That's easy: 0..9 ++ A..Z ++ a..z ++ 阿..中. Couldn't be simpler.
JUST MY correct OPINION
2010-06-04 04:26:29
@Preet Sangha: OK, so you read my answer and what leaps out at you as being ridiculous is the upper and lower cases?!
JUST MY correct OPINION
2010-06-10 01:11:13
I don't see why. The reason I asked the question originally was that on every computer I've debugged upper and lower case was treated as the same when using numbering systems.
Preet Sangha
2010-06-10 01:43:48
So the upper and lower cases leaped out as ridiculous, but the Chinese characters didn't?
JUST MY correct OPINION
2010-06-10 03:09:30
+1
A:
I would say Greek and Hebrew are two likely candidates, as they are used in mathematics.
Jens Björnhager
2010-10-21 11:41:57