Why four digits? - Tree of Souls

**Fkeu'itan** · #1 05-19-2010, 04:28 PM

Why is it the Na'vi have only 4 digits on each hand...?

Is there some kind of practical application for this? I don't really see why evolving to have 4 digits would be any more practical than having 5, even less so perhaps. So I was just wondering, is there anything that says why they lack that 5th digit?

Rainbowhawk1993 · #2 05-19-2010, 04:54 PM

Well, I don't know why the na'vi have 4 digets. But prehaps the 4 dights were suppose to show that jake and nyteiri were aliens to each other but still loved each other. (some scenes were suppost to show Jake and nyteiri weaving their fingers together.)

Sacred Tsahaylu · #3 05-19-2010, 08:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rainbowhawk1993

(some scenes were suppost to show Jake and nyteiri weaving their fingers together.)

I have said all along that this would be the ultimate scene (or it would make the current scene under the Tree of Voices even better, if that's possible).
As to why they have 4 digits, I have no idea. I think it was donebecause it would seem completely unbelievable that both Na'vi and humans would have similar physical traits like 5 fingers. So this separates them a bit

Boomachucka · #4 05-19-2010, 07:50 PM

For kicks!

Haha, but anyways... There's no particular reason we evolved with 5 fingers, I would say it was just best suited to our environment or something.

Now, a cool thought is that the Na'vi's numerical system would be composed of base 8 rather than base 10 like our own.

**Fkeu'itan** · #5 05-19-2010, 07:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boomachucka

For kicks!

Haha, but anyways... There's no particular reason we evolved with 5 fingers, I would say it was just best suited to our environment or something.

Now, a cool thought is that the Na'vi's numerical system would be composed of base 8 rather than base 10 like our own.

Ahh base 8... now there's something I tried to understand. And failed. Miserably.

**Na'vi_supporter** · #6 05-19-2010, 08:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boomachucka

For kicks!

Haha, but anyways... There's no particular reason we evolved with 5 fingers, I would say it was just best suited to our environment or something.

Now, a cool thought is that the Na'vi's numerical system would be composed of base 8 rather than base 10 like our own.

I also think that the reason was to make na'vi look like more alien

.

Btw the octal numeral system is a lot more practical than our decadic if it comes to computers. It can be converted to binary and vice versa very easily. Not much usefull for na'vi since they don't use this technology, they have eywa that is much better

.

Boomachucka · #7 05-19-2010, 09:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fkeu'itan

Ahh base 8... now there's something I tried to understand. And failed. Miserably.

It's cool, I went to university for computer science for a year and I still can't count with it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Na'vi_supporter

I also think that the reason was to make na'vi look like more alien

.

Btw the octal numeral system is a lot more practical than our decadic if it comes to computers. It can be converted to binary and vice versa very easily. Not much usefull for na'vi since they don't use this technology, they have eywa that is much better

.

Really? I find it way easier to convert decadic into binary than octal. Maybe it's just because I had way, way more practice doing that though, we didn't use octal extensively.

**Na'vi_supporter** · #8 05-19-2010, 10:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boomachucka

It's cool, I went to university for computer science for a year and I still can't count with it.

Really? I find it way easier to convert decadic into binary than octal. Maybe it's just because I had way, way more practice doing that though, we didn't use octal extensively.

Well this gonna be little oftopic...
Every 3 binary digits (000-111) equal one octal digit(0-7)
000=0, 001=1, 010=2, 011 = 3 ... 111 = 7.
The best of all is fact that u can do conversion to binary just by using simple rewriting rules mentioned above (in fact u can do similar thing with all numeral system with base of power 2 (2^n) where the binary number has n digits).

So for example binary byte 01011110 = 136 in octal. "Rewriting rules" must be used from right to letf, from the lowest exponent to the highest. So you really don't need any numerical operations here, and can be very easily converted. (btw more usefull nowadays is hexadecimal system...)

Boomachucka · #9 05-20-2010, 12:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Na'vi_supporter

Well this gonna be little oftopic...
Every 3 binary digits (000-111) equal one octal digit(0-7)
000=0, 001=1, 010=2, 011 = 3 ... 111 = 7.
The best of all is fact that u can do conversion to binary just by using simple rewriting rules mentioned above (in fact u can do similar thing with all numeral system with base of power 2 (2^n) where the binary number has n digits).

So for example binary byte 01011110 = 136 in octal. "Rewriting rules" must be used from right to letf, from the lowest exponent to the highest. So you really don't need any numerical operations here, and can be very easily converted. (btw more usefull nowadays is hexadecimal system...)

See, that makes perfect sense, but I'm still used to thinking in base2/base10 rather than base2/base8 because I never use it for anything, so I still find it more complicated!