iNTELLIGENCE

Venusians Counting

From a mathematical point of view, the number “ten” has nothing in particular. We are accustomed to it because we have ten fingers. If we’d have just four fingers, we’d maybe count

0, 1, 2, 3, 10, 11, 12, 13, 20, 21, ...

instead of

0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, ...

And in place of 3 + 5 = 8, we’d say 3 + 11 = 20.

This could be burdensome for astronauts. If we buy into the idea of some authors, Venusians don’t own hands and fingers, but they have some antennae growing out of their forehead. These creatures presumably count from zero up to a single-digit according to the number of their antennae. This may result in the following conversation:

Earthling: «I’ve noticed you have much bigger families than we have on earth. How many children do you own?»

Venusian (scratching his back of the head with an antenna): «Well, I have 43 sons and, let’s see, 52 daughters. 125 children altogether.»

How many children does the Venusian have (in terrestrial numbers), and how many antennae grow out of his forehead?

IQ solution