Too Big For Twitter

[Superfluous J]

I thought this up and it was too big for Twitter and I couldn't edit it down, nor could I think of a better place for it. So, I foist it upon you all.

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I didn't know how to communicate with that strange being from beyond the stars that landed in my backyard that night. The only thing I could think was the universal language: Mathematics. I drew a circle. Then a line bisecting that circle, then wrote "3.14159" over it to signify the number Pi.

The creature was at first confused, but then suddenly it understood.

"Aw." It said in English. "That's so cute. You use base 10, just like how many finger-wingers you have!"

It pinched my cheek, looked genuinely adored at me with a hint of a sardonic tear forming in its eyes, re-entered its craft, and lifted off to the heavens.

I've never seen it since.

[Shpaget]

Wouldn't my perfect response be a cheek pinch?

Just a thought, but if you assume the guy doesn't speak English, why do you assume it can read Arabic numerals?

Fun short story though. I like it.

[p1t1o]

Its a neat, compact tale, I like it.

But I gotta say, I hate that alien!

War, famine, persecution, destruction of our own biome....but base ten is where it draws the line? And it didnt realise until it landed in your garden?

Flippin tourists...

[Ozymandias_the_Goat]

The new “What funny or interesting thing happened in your life today” thread starts here.

Buy really, if base ten is so archaic, what does the alien have that’s better? What if he came across a programmer and learned of hexadecimals or binary? What if he came to earth a few thousand years ago and found the Babylonian base 60 system? I mean, how does he do maths?

Answer: Roman numerals, of course

[Shpaget]

7 minutes ago, Ozymandias_the_Goat said:

what does the alien have that’s better?

 

Base 12

[Ozymandias_the_Goat]

7 minutes ago, Shpaget said:

Base 12

Categorically 

[YNM]

3 hours ago, Shpaget said:

 

Base 12

Base 27 !

[Superfluous J]

4 hours ago, Ozymandias_the_Goat said:

The new “What funny or interesting thing happened in your life today” thread starts here.

Buy really, if base ten is so archaic, what does the alien have that’s better? What if he came across a programmer and learned of hexadecimals or binary? What if he came to earth a few thousand years ago and found the Babylonian base 60 system? I mean, how does he do maths?

Answer: Roman numerals, of course

Actually the idea was that the obvious answer was 2, 4, 8, or maybe 16. He was so uber-intelligent he could see that I was writing digits and just went through all of the possible ways to write Pi in each base, and then realized it matched the number of fingers I had.

The knowing English was more because the joke needed to be told in a few sentences and couldn't include a semester at ESL class.

[LordFerret]

So... you're saying you've met Bowerick Wowbagger?

[razark]

9 hours ago, LordFerret said:

So... you're saying you've met Bowerick Wowbagger?

It was probably just a teaser.