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Numeral Tokenization Audit


If "1234" is four tokens in one model and one in another, arithmetic gets harder for free.


Key Insight​

Tokenizers disagree on how to split numbers: some keep multi-digit chunks together, others break every digit apart. How digits are grouped directly shapes how hard arithmetic is for the model.

Why This Matters​

Early LLMs were notoriously bad at math partly because of inconsistent numeral tokenization. Auditing it reveals a concrete, fixable reason a model can fail at even simple sums.