Hey nerd, do you speak binary?
Imagine you could only use binary numbers throughout the day. How would you say the 8-bit binary number 10000000? You can’t say “ten million,” because there is no “million” of anything in binary. There’s just zero and one. The proper pronunciation of 10000000 is “one zero zero zero zero zero zero zero.”
Saying prices or other floating point values would be really annoying, because you’d always have to be thinking in exponents and mantissas. Instead of saying “Can I borrow a dollar twenty five for some Tic Tacs?,” you’d have to say, “Can I borrow zero zero one one one one one one one zero one zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero IEEE-754 floating point dollars for some Tic Tacs?”
And if something costs $0.10, you’d be screwed, because 1/10 can’t be represented exactly in binary floating point. Start digging around in your pocket for that $0.10000000149011612 coin. It’s in there somewhere!
It’s a giant oversight in computer science that we’ve successfully invented self-driving cars but we still have to stand around like idiots saying binary numbers one digit at a time. For a profession that takes pride in how efficiently it encodes things, this is a disgrace.
Let’s design a new way to speak binary more efficiently. Many programming languages let you write an expression like 0b1 (“Obi-Wan?”) to represent 1 in binary, or 0b1000 to represent binary 1000.
Along these lines, here’s a naive proposal:
10010001 would be pronounced “ben billion ben bousand and one.” It’s convenient because we quickly know how many zeroes we’re talking about. But ultimately, it’s too similar to base 10. It deceives the listener into believing that binary 100 is closely related to decimal 100.
And while even the most diehard supporters of binary numbers would agree that it’s worth paying homage to our decimal ancestors who have paved the way, we need to distance ourselves from the origins of decimal thinking. (We get it. You had 10 fingers. It all made sense at the time.)
We need to show innovation.
Maybe we can adapt the metric system’s prefixes? Metric, as usual, seems naturally suited to the problem because it deals in powers of 10 (or powers of 0b10). We already use binary prefixes, which are close cousins of metric, to describe the scale of digital information (“one gigabyte”). But we don’t use it to speak the actual values.
Here’s a distinct metric-like pronunciation system:
10010001 would be pronounced “deca megad deca kilad and one.” Is it better than “one zero zero one zero zero zero one”? Hell maybe!
The 16-bit number 1000 0000 0000 0000 would be pronounced “one petad.” Simple enough. But what about 0111 1111 1111 1111? Its pronunciation would be unreasonably long. I’m not even going to write it here.
We need to fix this because I’m sure it’s the only weakness in our otherwise brilliant system. What we need is a word for bitwise negation. How about “tilde,” since that’s the character many programming languages use? “Tilde one petad.”
So, when I say “tilde one terad one hecta kilad and deca,” you follow me, right? Great. Problem solved.
There’s just one other issue. Unfortunately, metric has no prefixes beyond 10¹⁸. The French Revolutionaries who proposed the system in the 1799 probably thought no one would ever need anything bigger than 10¹⁸. 😂
A commonplace 32-bit binary number like 1000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 puts us into unknown territory.
Where can we find some more words to use? I propose that we use the opportunity to honor some Internet entrepreneurs — for a price.
I think I found a new side hustle. Prices start at $1MM in decimal dollars for your very own binary placeholder. Obviously there is an additional premium attached to the coveted 32, 64, 128, and 256 bit places. But if you really want to cement your legacy, this is even better than getting a university building named after yourself. University buildings are full of risk: Who does everyone curse when the roof starts leaking at the postmodern Evan Spiegel School of Photography?
But this. This is timeless! It’s your calling card at computer science departments worldwide. It’s your recruitment pipeline for new grads. And it’s your ticket to immortality.
Who’s in?
