Talk:Quinary

Pental

I just got a new calculator, Sharp EL-531WH, which supports base-5. They call it Pental. I wonder what the uses are. Anyway, maybe a redirect page for Pental should be created? KMS 13:09, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

A quick search finds many references for this usage; so I put the redirect in. As for its uses, a few discussions on the internet came to the reasonable conclusion it is used to help students comprehend the japanese abacus. Marcus erronius (talk) 19:22, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

"only true 5-25" language known"

The Luiseño language also uses pure base 5 counting for numbers between 25 and 100, according to Native American Mathematics by Michael P. Closs. (ISBN 0-292-75531-7), though sometimes either a count by 25s or a count by 20s can be used... -- AnonMoos (talk) 22:21, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Notability

I suggest the notability issue is discussed at category talk:Positional numeral systems#Notability.--Noe (talk) 09:54, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Gumatj

I may sound dumb but I was told that is base number systems the number that it is a base of isn't part of the order. The Gumatj numerals are 1-5 so wouldn't that be base 6? Zebudster (talk) 19:20, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

You are correct that a base 5 number system won’t have a digit for 5. Close inspection of the table will reveal that they cound from 1 to 4 using 1s, the 5 to 25 using 5s, then 25 to 125 using 25s. This is equivalent to counting by tens and hundreds, but with fives and 25s, respectively. Marcus erronius (talk) 19:22, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

I wonder why 5 alone is "wanggany rulu" and not "dambumirri" (seen in the higher numbers as a single word for 5)? Double sharp (talk) 11:47, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

alternative name

i was thinking apart from you guys and I thought that the name "pental" would be better. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.185.0.100 (talk) 01:01, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 29 November 2016

see Favonian's talk page. 95.49.119.240 (talk) 16:31, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Empty request. You need to make your case here as to why the change should be made. - GB fan 16:32, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

change * to '''×'''
95.49.119.240 (talk) 16:39, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Why? How does this improve the article? - GB fan 16:40, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

more realistic
95.49.119.240 (talk) 16:43, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

How is it more realistic? What is unrealistic about the way it is right now? - GB fan 17:05, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

It's simply better.
95.49.119.240 (talk) 21:44, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 December 2016

While it's said here that roman numeral system uses a base 10 with sub base 5, i have to say it is wrong since only positional systems actually have a base (also called radix). A base-5 system would have a single symbol for all powers of 5 which are 1;5;25;125;... and as you can see these roman symbols stand not for powers but of something like "powers of ten, 5 times" which are 5;50;500 or V;L;D. Now, about the base 10, I;X;C;M are indeed each the first successive powers of 10, but it's obviously not positionnal since theiy differ and are all mapped to an absolute value : A true base-10 system such as decimal uses a single symbol for any power of 10 (we could take 'I' if we wish, but we actually took '1') but that would of course imply a zero which roman numeral system lacks. The roman numeral system may actually be reffered to as an additive numeral system, but such things are not mathematically well-defined and therefore have no radix whatsoever. Now, I actually question myself about the statement that humans used to use an actual base-5 system... and I strongly suspect that it's not the case. Particularly, the mayan numeration was a true base-20 (positionnal) but each digit was noted using an additive notation (which actual differs in logic from the claimed "roman sub base"), and not a sub base-5. Unomadh (talk) 11:07, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Not done: as you have not requested a specific change in the form "Please replace XXX with YYY" or "Please add ZZZ between PPP and QQQ".
More importantly, you have not cited reliable sources to back up your request, without which no information should be added to, or changed in, any article. - Arjayay (talk) 11:42, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

What is a quinary digit called?

What is a quinary digit called? Like a binary digit is called a bit and a trinary digit is called a trit. What's it called? Thanks. 24.150.217.182 (talk) 14:03, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

There's no real reason why there has to be a special name. The majority of "quinary" systems are due to subdividing a decimal position into a binary position and a quinary position (or in the case of the Maya, subdividing a vigesimal position into a quaternary position and a quinary position). AnonMoos (talk) 23:53, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Suggestion to Semi-Protect Positional System Articles

So, errm, this article was apparently unintentionally spammed by an IP user who Copy-Pasted from Omniglot: articles on base systems are quite prone to such spamming I think, and I'd like to suggest semiprotecting these articles. (Is there any good place to suggest this as a general lurker with a near-zero contribution?) -PerkeleenHullu (talk) 06:43, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

To discuss it, probably Talk:Numeral system, to formally request protection Wikipedia:Requests for page protection... -- AnonMoos (talk) 09:31, 18 February 2020 (UTC)