Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by f6v 1864 days ago
They'd ask: "What is 78000?"
1 comments

Evidence of humans quantifying is roughly as old as this burial. The communication difficulty here would come from translating 78,000 into their mathematical system.
And yet the punchline is still valid because surely they have no concept of numbers that large without any sort of base system involved.
Sure, if requiring a minimum of translation as a premise (i.e. not introducing the concept of orders into the language via explanation.) Though I would be surprised if sexagesimal turns out to always be the oldest system we unearth.