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I found a sheet online that shows the Tau language and number system, and I saw that the numbers only went up to 7.
Is this a limitation of our knowledge as the players, or do Tau use a base 7 system?


http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/warhammer40k/images/b/b5/Taualphabet_2.gif/revision/latest?cb=20150101145529&path-prefix=ru

Their number system is Base 8 (0-7, just like our number system base 10 is 0-9), and that image comes from the 3rd edition Tau codex where their number system is described.

It's amazing they have even reached their current tech base if their number system is based on seven.

 Wyzilla wrote:
It's amazing they have even reached their current tech base if their number system is based on seven.

the ancient civilizations that we derived our current solar calendar from used a base 60 number system, which is why there are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour etc. How the hell do we keep time? I'm sure this is somewhere on the internet, but how did converting to a 10 based system influence our own technological growth?

 Powerfisting wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
It's amazing they have even reached their current tech base if their number system is based on seven.

the ancient civilizations that we derived our current solar calendar from used a base 60 number system, which is why there are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour etc. How the hell do we keep time? I'm sure this is somewhere on the internet, but how did converting to a 10 based system influence our own technological growth?

some SE asian cultures had base 5.
a lot of mathmetitions think our understanding of numbers would be better if we had base 12.
base 8 isnt that bad, certainly plausible that a civilization could develop using base 8

base 7 though is crazy.

Pythius Primus wrote:
Their number system is Base 8 (0-7, just like our number system base 10 is 0-9), and that image comes from the 3rd edition Tau codex where their number system is described.

Whoops, base 8. Thanks for the reply.

 Powerfisting wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
It's amazing they have even reached their current tech base if their number system is based on seven.

the ancient civilizations that we derived our current solar calendar from used a base 60 number system, which is why there are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour etc. How the hell do we keep time? I'm sure this is somewhere on the internet, but how did converting to a 10 based system influence our own technological growth?

Not even close to true, every society ever discovered is base 10. With one exception, which still causes intrest, among anthropologists, a society was discovered on an island that was base 20. They counted on their feet. Zeros were not invented until much later by Indian Mathematicians and have nothing to do with the base number system per sè.

Minutes are a derivation of the divisibility of 60. As was much of the (superior in this respect) imperial system of weights and measures

ConanMan wrote:

 Powerfisting wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
It's amazing they have even reached their current tech base if their number system is based on seven.

the ancient civilizations that we derived our current solar calendar from used a base 60 number system, which is why there are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour etc. How the hell do we keep time? I'm sure this is somewhere on the internet, but how did converting to a 10 based system influence our own technological growth?

Not even close to true, every society ever discovered is base 10. With one exception, which still causes intrest, among anthropologists, a society was discovered on an island that was base 20. They counted on their feet. Zeros were not invented until much later by Indian Mathematicians and have nothing to do with the base number system per sè.

Minutes are a derivation of the divisibility of 60. As was much of the (superior in this respect) imperial system of weights and measures

I spent a month learning about Babylonian cuneiform math which was base 60. They used clay and reeds with a triangle shape to make sideways triangles and upright triangles to separate their clusters of 60 into different places. It isn't exactly where we got 60 minutes and 60 seconds and 360 days (which was later made more accurate to 364.25), I think that came later from another group who used base 60.

Base 60 actually hurt the Babylonians when they learned multiplication. It just isn't possible to learn 60x60 different multiplications so they only memorized the squares and then performed multiplication using a numerical version of what we now call FOIL:

19x24=(20-1)x (20+4)=400+80-20-4=456

Which I think is awesome and definitely makes for a fun example for students who have yet to realize there are usually many ways to solve a math problem.

I think the use of 12 remains popular largely because the number can be divided by 2,3,4, and 6 easily. All of these numbers were crucial to common construction. Much of the argument for the metric system fails to realize this but then again that amount of ease in division isn't as necessary now. The tau might be using base 8 for a similar purpose. You might also consider how many fingers they have...

Check this out for more info on babylonian base 60. We know a lot about it compared to Egyptian math:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_mathematics

Base 8 (Octal) like hexadecimal (Base 16) also works well when talking about digital computers, where everything is ones and zeros. Powers of two and all that. As a numerical system, it’s got a lot going for it.

Mate the babylonians did not use 60 that way.. we try to say they do, but that says more about us.. but they would say they used a two digit system.. one of a 10, followed by one of a 6 .. they had one to ten then sort of a tens twenties thirties forties and fifties sixties prefix

Yes, they did use only two digits and yes those digits themselves were in a base of ten. But when those symbols of tens (ten of sixty or as you said one of a six) and ones (one of sixty or as you said one of a ten) were clustered they formed a placeholder of at most 60 before moving on, positionally, to ones and tens of the square of 60. You can say it was base 10 organized in positional groups of 60 or you can say it was base 60 with a base 10 marker system for ease of writing quickly and on the amount of clay available. I prefer to call it simply base 60 because a cursory understanding of the system would lead to that result as well. Calling it base 10 and then writing it in the way they wrote would be confusing when thinking of bases as we know them today. Taking your words, I'd rather call it by the way we think about it instead of the way they thought about it.

That said my reason will be different from yours. I taught it to children and called it base 60 so they understood immediately that it was different, and probably interesting.

The US and UK prosper, and they use bloody 12.

Why are we arguing about number systems based around an alien star system? If the Tau use base 8, there's probably a reason easily explained as "they're aliens,"

I dunno, probably because it is a fun thought experiment?

Because no matter what numbers would actually be a universal language?

Humans have 10 fingers -> Base 10
Tau have 8 fingers -> Base 8

The image in OP shows numbers 0-7, and then adds another digit (we guess) when you reach 8. That makes in base 8 : in the same way we have numbers 0-9 in base 10.

(Perhaps the first premise is incorrect for many historic human cultures, but its an easy enough trap to fall in to and lends itself nicely to Tau's system).

Of course, then it's all blown away in other parts of the fluff when Tau battlesuits are named XV88 or event XV89 (though again its hard to know if that is what Tau designate their suits or what Imperials call them). In the first Tau book their day was organised in to 20 'Decs', 10 day 10 night, but that just seems like an all round horrible system.

 ChazSexington wrote:
The US and UK prosper, and they use bloody 12.

UK's been slowly converting to metric, but yeah. only problem the US has had is when occasionally people have used imperial instead of metric scientificly or something (metric being the standard of science) which IIRC lead to one failure of a mars probe

The big question is, if Tau use base 8, why are their line infantry organised in units of six? Sure, it makes eight if you include drones, but you don't get four extra drones to make squads of size 16 if you buy a second half-squad.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
The big question is, if Tau use base 8, why are their line infantry organised in units of six? Sure, it makes eight if you include drones, but you don't get four extra drones to make squads of size 16 if you buy a second half-squad.

Squad size has nothing to do with base 8 or 10 or whatever. US army squads are 9 soldiers. There's no reason to have squad size based on your counting system. Transport size, logistics and doctrine are things that influence squad size.

It could also be the span of control possible with the tau brain. The human brain can effectivly control about 3-5 people (that is why a team in the army is ussually 3 people, 3 teams per squad, 3-5 squads per platoon depending on your job, etc all the way up) so if the tau brain works like that then thier squad size may be the limit of thier span of control.

Also, it doesnt matter what number system you use as long as your brain works that way and everyone else understands it. Sure it might cause problems when they take on human conscripts, but who cares what the cannon fodder...errr....i mean...allies think.

My .02

Is it possible to explain briefly why this base system thing matters? If it's really complex don't worry, but someone said a civilisation based on a base 7 system wouldn't work, and I don't really get why it would matter.

I'm not entirely sure myself, but I would assume that it has something to do with human brains struggling to deal with odd numbers - as a species, we're very fond of symmetry and binaries.

Think about it this way. When counting in "tau" you would go zero one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, one-zero, one-one, one-two, one-three, one-four, one-five, one-six, one-seven, two-zero, ect.

Essentially, their second place for numerals (where we put tens) would be 8's. where we put 100's, it would be 64's (IIRC).

And it would work, the only reason we think of it as weird is because we use base ten.

Computers, for example, use base two (zero, one, one-zero, one-one, one-zero-zero, or 0, 1, 10, 11, 100).

As for designations, the names of units are actually imperial designations. You can tell if it's the actually name if it is unpronounceable, with at least one apostrophe (FE Y'vahra). This has lead to jokes, 9 would be "11", so and XV9 is "taking it up to 11".



Basically, it's just a different number system, that wouldn't work better or worse.

The thing that's always bothered me since reading about the base 8 bit in the first Tau codex is how did they end up with XV8's? They don't have an 8, so it should have gone XV6, XV7, XV10 (which is 8 in base 8 if my memory of school is correct). Forgeworld even manages to find the XV9 in a base 8 numerical system...

(I'll put my hand up here for my own ignorance, if there's some simple explanation then I can finally stop worrying about this!)

{Edit} Managed to get an answer before I'd even posted, with Co'Tor Shas saying it's the Imperium who add the numbers

Perhaps it's the Imperial Designation of the unit? That's the only thing I can think of that would explain it.

 Quanar wrote:
The thing that's always bothered me since reading about the base 8 bit in the first Tau codex is how did they end up with XV8's? They don't have an 8, so it should have gone XV6, XV7, XV10 (which is 8 in base 8 if my memory of school is correct). Forgeworld even manages to find the XV9 in a base 8 numerical system...

(I'll put my hand up here for my own ignorance, if there's some simple explanation then I can finally stop worrying about this!)

Quite simply, those are imperial designations, not the actual tau names of them.

ConanMan wrote:

 Powerfisting wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
It's amazing they have even reached their current tech base if their number system is based on seven.

the ancient civilizations that we derived our current solar calendar from used a base 60 number system, which is why there are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour etc. How the hell do we keep time? I'm sure this is somewhere on the internet, but how did converting to a 10 based system influence our own technological growth?

Not even close to true, every society ever discovered is base 10. With one exception, which still causes intrest, among anthropologists, a society was discovered on an island that was base 20. They counted on their feet. Zeros were not invented until much later by Indian Mathematicians and have nothing to do with the base number system per sè.

Minutes are a derivation of the divisibility of 60. As was much of the (superior in this respect) imperial system of weights and measures

Uhhh, I think you have no idea what you're talking about. For one thing, Base 1 predates any and all other known human number systems. There are certain indiginous Papuan language groups that are said to still use Base 60 to this day. Certain Nigerian language groups use Base 12. Inuits, Mayans, and ancient Celts used Base 20, etc. etc. etc.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Quanar wrote:
The thing that's always bothered me since reading about the base 8 bit in the first Tau codex is how did they end up with XV8's? They don't have an 8, so it should have gone XV6, XV7, XV10 (which is 8 in base 8 if my memory of school is correct). Forgeworld even manages to find the XV9 in a base 8 numerical system...

(I'll put my hand up here for my own ignorance, if there's some simple explanation then I can finally stop worrying about this!)

Quite simply, those are imperial designations, not the actual tau names of them.

Yeah, I mean do you really think the Tau named their tanks Hammerheads? After a species of fish (which mind you have gone extinct in the 41st millenium) found on a planet they have never visited located on the opposite end of the galaxy? Ditto Orca, Manta, Barracuda, Tigershark, etc.

 ImAGeek wrote:
Is it possible to explain briefly why this base system thing matters? If it's really complex don't worry, but someone said a civilisation based on a base 7 system wouldn't work, and I don't really get why it would matter.

My thought is that it wouldn't work well for the same reason that base 12 does work well: 7 is not divisible by anything but 1 and itself. The base 7 "foot" or "meter" would be difficult to bisect or trisect.

Also when such a civilisation came to computers which would likely use binary no matter what, they would have difficulty translating the on/off computer counting to a system of 0 to 6. There is a funny aspect of this because a lot of people who argue about the superiority of the metric system will say that base 10 is what computers use, when in reality neither system performs well.

A system of base however would allow a civilisation to understand computer counting quickly.

On a side note is anyone thinking of Tom Lehr's new math? "Don't worry, base eight is just like base ten really, if you're missing two fingers."

Hooray for new math...

Base 10? Don't you mean base 2?


Also, Just in general, tau are base 8 (0-7) not base 7 (which would be 0-6).

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Base 10? Don't you mean base 2?

There are 10 kinds of people in the universe: Those who understand binary, and those who don’t.