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Eks
Eks

Island 6

The first five islands have taken us through much of grade school mathematics. Let’s now head on to advanced high school algebra. Whoa!

But here’s the thing: there is nothing to it! We’ve already done all the work.

The only thing we have to realize is that there is nothing special about a 1101\leftarrow 10 machine. We could do all of grade school arithmetic in a 121\leftarrow 2 machine if we wanted to, or a 151\leftarrow 5 machine, or even a 1371 \leftarrow 37 machine. The math doesn’t care in which machine we do it. It is only us humans with a predilection for the number ten that draws us to the 1101\leftarrow 10 machine.

Let’s now go through much of what we’ve done. But let’s now do it in all possible machines, all at once!

Sounds crazy. But it is easy.