Suppose you visited an alien planet and the creatures wrote numbers in order as follows: "obi, fin, mus, obi-na, obi-obi, obi-fin, obi-mus…" These creatures must be using which base?
A) base ten
B) base three
C) base four
D) base nine
E) base twelve

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The sequence suggests a counting system that increases with each term, and "obi" appears to represent the base unit. The pattern "obi, fin, mus, obi-na, obi-obi, obi-fin, obi-mus…" indicates that after "mus," the counting restarts with "obi" as a prefix, suggesting a base-4 system: 1 (obi), 2 (fin), 3 (mus), 10 (obi-na), 11 (obi-obi), 12 (obi-fin), 13 (obi-mus).

Suppose You Visited an Alien Planet and the Creatures Wrote