Redundant Multiple-Valued Number Systems

In a civilization, human labor of one type is exchanged for human labor of another type. For example, when one eats at a restaurant, one exchanges money earned from one’s own labor for the labor of people who cook, raise animals and vegetables, deliver goods, etc.. This exchange is made possible by a salary, which establishes a value for labor of different types. There are many ways to represent a value; however, in virtually all number systems, symbols from some finite set are combined to represent potentially large values. The decimal number system, in which there are ten symbols, has found wide use; many people believe this is due to the ten fingers of the human species. A similar situation exists in computers. Since conventional logic elements easily realize two values, computers use binary number systems. The prospect of multiple-valued logic suggests the need to understand number systems with more than two digits.