| Frederik Pohl | This page: | Category: | index pages:
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Introduction to Digits and Dastards
Copyright © 1966 by Frederik Pohl | |
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There are three claims commonly made for science fiction to prove that it is really something of great value: that it educates people to science, that it helps encourage young people to scientific careers, and that it predicts the technological advances of the future. What they say about science fiction is all true. No doubt about it. But there are science-fiction stories and science-fiction stories, and when they say those things about science fiction, they aren’t talking about me. All the same, inside every writer lurks the concealed soul of a pedant, and I will confess in public to a longstanding wish to teach something to somebody. | Topic: |
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But what happened to the audience I was trying to reach? I’ll tell you what happened to them—I abandoned shame, went out and asked a dozen or so. Without exception they said, yes, by gosh, that sure looked like it was an interesting and informative piece that would tell them a whole lot of fascinating stuff about binary arithmetic, and they certainly intended to read it, someday soon. But they never did. | |
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Wouldn’t you like to be the first on your block to count the way a computer does? Please? Note (Hal’s): — end note | |
text checked (see note) Nov 2007 | |
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How to Count on Your Fingers
Copyright © 1956 by Columbia Publications Corp.
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| Science is measurement and interpretation; without measurement, interpretation is foggy soul-searching; and measurement is number. Change our system of writing numbers, and you must translate nearly the entire recorded body of human knowledge—lab reports and tax returns, cost estimates and time studies, knowledge about the behavior of mu mesons, and knowledge about transactions on the New York Stock Exchange. | Topic: |
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It has been said in many science-fiction stories (and not very often anywhere else) that this is homo sapiens’ “natural” system of counting, because, look, don’t we have ten fingers on our hands? As a theory, let’s not worry ourselves about this too much; if true, it will have plenty of chances to prove itself when our exploring rockets turn up some Note (Hal’s): — end note | |
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If binary arithmetic has a fault, it is that it is so excessively easy that it becomes boring. But the world’s work is full of boring operations that get done anyhow. We have found two good ways to handle them—either to turn them over to machines (like UNIVAC), which do not have the capacity for boredom, or to learn to do them as a matter of mechanical routine. | |
| Since the human animal is conservative, most of us can find objections to any sort of change. (“Better the devil you know.”) Since the human animal is also educable, we often, however, overcome our objections when the change promises rewards. | |
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Then the subtraction is merely a matter of considering the successive digits, reading from the right, subtracting the digit shown on your finger from the corresponding digit in the written number you are subtracting from, and carrying “borrowed” numbers. (Are you able to remember how much trouble you had with “carrying” when you first learned the principles of decimal subtraction? Then don’t give up on binary subtraction if it takes you a few minutes to get the hang of “carrying” here.) The result you “write,” one digit at a time, on your fingers. Note (Hal’s): I learned this from my mother and her sister, who were discussing a description in Tom Lehrer’s song “New Math.” — end note | |
text checked (see note) Nov 2007 | |
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On Binary Digits and Human Habits
Copyright © 1962 by Mercury Press, Inc.
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Note (Hal’s): Unfortunately (or maybe not), his suggestions became irrelevant. Computer users found the easy translation from binary to octal allowed them to use familiar numbers and words. The further transition to hexadecimal required the addition of a six-letter phonetic alphabet, but once computer memories gravitated toward “word” sizes that divided conveniently into four-bit units, and those units coincided with character encodings, it became more natural than octal – and incidentally revealed another advantage: it was often unnecessary to specify that a number was not decimal, because the appearance of any digits from For the sake of reminders, a few quick samples from the article are saved here. — end note | |
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Thus the date 1960 would be written: 1,11101,01000 and pronounced, “Dit, didididahdit, dahdidahdahdah.” Note (Hal’s): — end note | |
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At any rate, on the above principles our binary equivalent of 1960 is now pronounced, “odd-dah, tot-oh.”
Note (Hal’s): — end note | |
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Decimal 1960 is now in its binary convention pronounced, “Oddy-dye, totter-pohl.” Note (Hal’s): — end note | |
text checked (see note) Nov 2007 | |