I don't understand base 5 in mathmatics!!! help!?

Question

im homeschooled, and i've tried everything on bases, i just don't understand. i need an easier way to learn it.

Answer 1

Imagine that we had based our number system on one hand instead of two.  The reason we use base ten math is that we have 10 fingers.  So in counting you only have the digits 0,1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.  So I would count like this 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, etc.

Answer 2

My 10 year old is going to explain it:

"Do you know powers?  Powers are just repeated multiplication, just like multiplication is just repeated addition.   If you wanted to multiply by 5, add that number five times.  Same with powers, if you want to raise it to the power of 10, mulitiply itself 10 times.  So if you wanted to raise 10 ^10, multiply 10X10X10...(ten times).

In base 10, our system of numbers, it's all based on powers of 10.  The first is the ones place - 10 ^0.  The second place is the tens place, 10 ^1.  The third place is the hundreds place, 10 ^2., etc.  The number 322 is 300+20+2.  

So, the first place in base 5 would be ones, 5 ^0, the second would be the fives place, 5 ^1,  then the third would be twenty-fives place, 5 ^2 (or 5 squared).  The fourth would be 125- 5 ^3 (or cubed).  Then just keep repeating that pattern.  The number 87 going from base 10 to base 5, would be 322 in base 5."

Here's a handy conversion calculator:

http://www.efunda.com/units/base_n.cfm

Answer 3

It's a fancy way of division. 13 in base 5 is 2 5's with 3 remaining.