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How high can you count on your fingers? (Spoiler: much higher than 10) - James Tanton

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How high can you count on your fingers? It seems like a question with an obvious answer. After all, most of us have ten fingers -- or to be more precise, eight fingers and two thumbs. This gives us a total of ten digits on our two hands, which we use to count to ten. But is that really as high as we can go? James Tanton investigates.

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In representing the binary system on fingers, a raised first digit has the value 1, a raised second digit the value 2, a raised third digit the value 4, all the way up to a raised tenth digit having the value 512. What number is represented by raising the first, third, fifth, and sixth fingers together?

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TED-Ed Animations feature the words and ideas of educators brought to life by professional animators. Are you an educator or animator interested in creating a TED-Ed Animation? Nominate yourself here »

Meet The Creators

  • Educator James Tanton
  • Director Lisa LaBracio
  • Script Editor Alex Gendler
  • Sound Designer Weston Fonger
  • Animator Kaitlyn Carroll
  • Narrator Addison Anderson

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