Who Invented Binary Numbers?

[JustNotCricket]

Who invented binary numbers?

How many different binary codes have been invented?

[jomifl]

just like aeroplanes were waiting to be discovered?

[ToraToraTora]

not remotely comparable jomifl.

[jomifl]

Surely maths is an invented way of describing a discovered relationship.

[ludwig]

// Nothing in maths is invented, including binary //

It's a bit like the old tree falling in the forest. Do numbers exist if no-one is around to count?

[mibn2cweus]

Math's is a method, a system for comparing existing quantitative relationships between existants using established units of measurement. Binary uses the minimum of different characters relying solely on positional notation to express quantity. Numbers such as two, three, four, are concepts denoting an established quantity within themselves.

[Prudie]

No jomifl - aeroplanes have to be 'put together' as do other inventions, discoveries already exist in their natural state, as does counting using only 2 fingers!

[mibn2cweus]

Numbers are not concretes. Numbers are an abstraction, a conceptual relationship between concretes. There is no entity 'one' or 'two' floating around in reality waiting to be captured and put in a box. There is only 'one of' or 'two of' etc.

[jake-the-peg]

// a conceptual relationship between concretes //

So what's concrete about a complex number then

I've never seen 2+3i sheep myself - but maybe I've not been looking hard enough

[jim360]

Complex numbers are real in the abstract sense. 2+3i represents a point on the plane.

I actually tend to believe that much of Maths is discovery rather than invention but I regard binary umbers as a notational convenience and no more significant than any other choice of representation. This to me moves them into the realm of invention rather than discovery, but I could be persuaded otherwise I think (did we just discover another representation?)

[jake-the-peg]

//Complex numbers are real in the abstract sense. 2+3i represents a point on the plane. //

So you're saying that they are real because they exist in an abstract construct (a plane)?

Isn't that like saying that Micky Mouse is real because he exists in an abstract construct (a movie) ?

[Old_Geezer]

Numbers had to be there before anyone was conscious enough to consider them, but the system of representation can be more justifiably argued to be an invention.

How can you have more than one code defined as "binary" ? Unless you want to use different symbols that is.

[jim360]

Well I'm saying that 2+3i is as real as 2 and 3 are.

[Old_Geezer]

Mickey Mouse is real, as a cartoon. He's just not real as a living being (as far as I am aware/in this plane of existence/on this planet anyway).

[ToraToraTora]

complex numbers, non exact roots, e, Pi, infinity all names we assign to things we have discovered. They are not exact in the sense we can equate them but the fact we know about them and use them as devices for algebra to solve problems etc is merely consequence of our discovery of maths.

I sense a touch of mischief from jake, happy to play along though, I'm enjoying this subject.

Does the original poster have any observations on this thread or has he, very sensibly, gone down the pub?!

[jomifl]

There is a difference between maths, which only exists in human brains and the relationships it describes which exist everywhere described or not. Maths is a human construct or invention, it is a tool. The relationship between the circumference of a circle and it's diameter existed long before ancient Greece.

[jomifl]

AOG, I think things hav e always been there, they only got numbers when there was someone to count them :-)

[mibn2cweus]

"Three pints or three ounces?"

Keep the three . . . just bring me the pints.

[wildwood]

101010

[mibn2cweus]

mibn10cweus . . . somehow just doesn't have that ring.

[wildwood]

^^ This looks more impressive.


01101101 01101001 01100010 01101110 00110010 01100011 01110111 01100101 01110101 01110011