Comment by cdcformatc on 28/07/2014 at 20:07 UTC

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View submission: xkcd: D.B. Cooper

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'Thirty seven' has two digits. 37 in any base not base 10 is not 37. Base 36 you use 1-9 and a-z for digits, if you go to base 37 you run out of characters.

The highest single digit number in base 10 is 9. The highest single digit number in base 36 is Z. The highest single digit number in base 37 is (some glyph that doesn't exist in English).

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Comment by Malgas at 28/07/2014 at 20:25 UTC

2 upvotes, 1 direct replies

No, 'thirty seven' is the English-language representation of a specific abstract quantity. In a base-38 or higher number system it would have a single digit; in binary it has six.