Binary Counting

Count to over one thousand using nothing but your fingers.

Comments

[Iridium7]

my favorite # is 132

[fwjs28]

this one is easier to understand, but the others are more in depth....i prefer this...

[Arbitror]

#4 LOL!

[knoxarama]

how to count in binary

this is more detailed

[Deering]

so let's say there are 6 fingers, would the sixth one be 32?it confuses me so much... From what i understand, to some people binary comes to people naturally while others have to learn it.That and a fun fact is that certain puzzles are based on binary,you have to fugure wich ones have to be on (1) and off (0) at the right time and after a while you notice a pattern...

[knoxarama]

yes, because the other five together are 31

[octavian234]

yes. all you do is take the previous number and multiply it by 2. when you want to write letters you would write in bits or sections of eight

[casey321b]

omg a cartoon flipped me off. you 4er!!! really that shouldn't be posted i think. there is no such thing as four anymore

[uffabrew]

The poster/cartoon is nice but seriously flawed. Using all ten fingers and all ten toes would result in 1,048,575 possible combination. Assuming you started counting at zero. I don't know how the cartoonist missed the other 8000 combinations. iMaybe the small toes are worth a little less........1,040,575 is not 2 to the 20th power. 2 to the 20th is 1,048,576, ie One Megabyte. Good job "Spiff" you get the A for the day for pointing out the error!

[icedog515]

lmao.

[bigpinecone]

my new favorite number is 4...

[112251919112]

hohoho

[112251919112]

i tought binary was like, 10010111010101101101101110100010100101010?

[DarkOneSS]

it is. in this instance each finger represents a 1 when it is up and a 0 when it's down. so 0000000000 = 0, 0000000001 = 1, 0000000010 = 2, 0000000011 = 3 and 0000000100 = 4. Understand? So that would make your number 1,299,994,592,554.

[112251919112]

yeh, I figuered that out at dinner

[copycat-42]

frederick pohl wrote an essay about this. "how to count on your fingers" it was at the end of the his short-story collection "digits and dastards".

[oohiw]

Look ma, 4!

[zachninme]

Base 3 should be possible, Up = 2, bent =1, and down=0...

[kennytatheguy]

number... four.... LOL.. well, anyway, thats great, i never knew binary and it always confused me.

[Crash2108]

Just don't tell your 4 year old how to tell his age on his fingers.

[mewantbigboom]

is it appropiate counting to 4 like this?

[savagenarce]

Maybe I'm missing something, or maybe I'm just becoming a grouchy old fart, but it seems I can count as high as I want without using my fingers, toes, or any other appendages. 1-2-3-4...a billion and one, a billion and two...

[ICeSpliCe]

I used to do this when I was a wee child. One of my friends fathers taught us when were around 5 years old. I still use it when I need to add large numbers up. Sometimes people look at you funny, but who cares! I love it. Very glad to see that its being passed on. :):):)

[pelrun]

If someone is able to individually control their toes, wow! I can only manipulate the smaller toes on each foot as one unit.

That means four extra bits, and therefore a maximum count of 2^{14 = 16383.}

I've counted binary on my fingers for as long as I can remember. Zero to three are the critical maneuvers as your index finger and thumb perform the same motion continuously - the faster you can do that, the faster you can count. The other fingers aren't much of a challenge after that... although it helps immensely with the more difficult numbers if you use your thumb to hold the other downed fingers.

[erikabuentello]

super cool. I really love this.

[spinach_dip]

Meh

[spiff]

The fingers and toes panel number should be 1,048,575 (which is 2^{20 - 1). You accidentally turned the 8 into a zero.}

[courtarro]

That might be dangerous! Make sure your son doesn't go around showing everyone how he can count to 4! Or even worse, 132!

[LordVorp]

This is amazing... I showed my 6-year old how to do it and he picked it up in just a day! With just a tiny bit of coaching, we've already introduced hexadecimal, and it seemed a natural, simple extension. THANK YOU!!!!