Why do they have to invent new stupid words?
What was wrong with “Octal” (base 8 numbering system)
Very true. Sounded like base 8 to me.
Appears to be a bit more ‘complex’ than a Base-8 number system.
Also discovered in 1843, I tend to suspect the terminology predates the current use of Octal.
This has absolutely NOTHING to do with the base of the numbers and EVERYTHING to do with dimensionality. The number line we’re all familiar with is one dimensional. Imaginary numbers (see (SQRT(-1)) are two dimensional. They are heavily used in, for example, electromagnetic field theory and quantum mechanics. Four dimensional numbers are used to describe space-time in relativistic physics. These folks theorize that elementary particle physics may perhaps end up being best described using 8 dimensional numbers.