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You can count past 1,000 on your fingers by using binary, instead of just 10
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this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2026
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In decimal I can show a 1'111'111'111 with fingers. A billion is bigger than a thousand.
You can show that much, but not count to it. With 10 fingers you have 1024 unique permutations, so stsrting from 0, you can only get to 1023.
It could still be possible if you're able to handle your fingers in more than 4 positions and are very patient.
Mmm but what if I flip my hands over - gives me 4096...
Hands thumb towards vs thumb away from me? 16384...
Introduce a finger bent state and now we're at 944,784...
Straight/bent a little/bent a lot/closed + 4 hand orientations each gets you over 16M
As I said, more than 4 positions.
Pretty sure that's a joke mate.
But you can’t count until more than 10 in unary. That’s what’s being compared here.
With only two states for each finger, you cant count past 1 in decimal. You can count up to 10 in unary.
*unary