Magic Number 3

On this day 5/9/06, I want to discuss the most underrated number, the number 3. Perhaps our nature is to think of the world as in base-10 and base-2 for some strange psychological or biological reasons (10 fingers, and the bi-symmetry of ourselves, left-vs.-right). But through a series of posts I want to talk about base-3, and I'm not the only one. In a wonderfully readable article in American Scientist, the author shows the following graph that indicates that base-3 is optimal! What does that mean? Well, it means that we should be striving to make a computer that runs on Base-3 instead of Base-2. Not only is base-3 best for us (in terms of least headache in writing down numbers and doing simple math on them - yes, easier than our base-10 that we've spent a life time studying), but it also could make computers run much faster and more efficiently.

Here's a great puzzle related to this base-3 business:
"You are given 12 balls and one of them has a weight defect - either heavier or lighter. We don't know which one it is. You are allowed to use a balance pan three times to find the defective ball. What process should you follow?"

click here for the answer.

more on this base-3 stuff later...