Radix economy

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Radix economy is the efficiency of expressing a number in a particular base. The economy for any particular number in a given base is equal to the number of digits needed to express it in that base, multiplied by the radix. For example, 1100100₂ (100) has radix economy 7×2 = 14, while in base 3 100 is written 10201₃, with an economy of 15. The decimal representation has an economy of 30 (larger numbers are worse), and the economy of 2₃₆ is 72. In general, base 3 is the most economic of any base, followed by binary and base 4. This would theoretically allow computers to be significantly more powerful if they used ternary, but considerable development would be needed to reach the processing power of modern binary hardware.

[edit] External link

• "Radix economy" at Everything2