Binary Explained

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Binary Explained

Before we can talk about Binary numbers, I need to explain Decimal

numbers. Decimal numbers are also known as denary numbers and Base

ten. Ten is the bases of decimal numbers simply because we are used to

using our fingers to count. By adding a place value determines the

meaning of the number, for instance, 192 is a smaller number than 219

although the same numbers have been used. To produce a number in

decimal we use one of the ten digits. These are:

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

Below is a table to show how the decimal 235 is made up.

Hundredths

Binary numbers work in a different way, they use a base number of two

and so they only use two symbols, 1 and 0. Below is a table to explain

how the decimal equivalent would be written.

This is how binary works. Because the binary system has a base of two,

this means that each place number is a power of two. The table below

shows the system.

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Table 1

If we look at the table and take the furthest column to the right and

work our way the left, we see that:

2 to the power of 0 is = 1

2 to the power of 1 is = 2 (2x1 = 2)

2 to the power of 2 is = 4 (2x2 = 4)

2 to the power of 3 is = 8 (2x2x2 = 8)

2 to the power of 4 is = 16 (2x2x2x2 = 16)

2 to the power of 5 is = 32 (2x2x2x2x2 = 32)

…….and so on.

Now that the table is done we can start converting from binary numbers

to decimal. What we can say next is add a new line to the bottom of

the existing table and if there is a 1 in the box then that number

will be added to the total number (in decimal), this can be seen in

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