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Digital Literacy Computer Basics Computer Basics Binary

Carlo Inzunza
Carlo Inzunza
1,117 Points

Hi, the question said" The binary system uses ___ as their base number? I ddi't really understand the question...

Does it mean that is a 1 and a 0? that's what I though it was, but that wasn't one of the choises

4 Answers

You're on the right track! The answer to this question was a mind blowing moment for me in my programming journey: we've been living our lives in base 10. Base 10 is what we count in normally...I suspect it has to do with the fact that we have 10 fingers or 10 toes to count with :) Anywho, binary is what computers use to count and do calculations with...and its other name is base 2 because the computer is counting with just those 0's and 1's...and nothing else, so that's 2 numbers...hence, base 2! So the computer will convert base 2 to our usual base 10.

Just as a note, there's other bases too, like base 8, base 6, etc. There's a cool little counting program that shows you more how it works on this math site: https://www.mathsisfun.com/hexadecimals.html

Carlo Inzunza
Carlo Inzunza
1,117 Points

Oh I get it now... Thanks! That was really fast! Thanks for the explanation! XD

So your teachers your whole life have been hiding the truth when teaching you to count and do math...it's all been in Base 10! (mind explosion sound!)

Jennifer Nordell
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STAFF
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Jennifer Nordell
Treehouse Teacher

abbymann is correct. Think of it like this. When we go from 0 to 9 (or ten numbers) then all of a sudden we have to start using two numbers together. Binary works like this except that it it happens after two numbers. So "10" is actually in binary is actually 2 in base 10.

There's a fairly popular joke among computer enthusiasts that goes like this: "There are 10 kinds of people in this world: those who understand binary and those who don't". But since we know that 10 is the binary representation of 2... well... you get the idea :)

I was tempted to make a joke about there being no Ace of Bases (hahah 90's humor)! I like your joke better though! :D

Carlo Inzunza
Carlo Inzunza
1,117 Points

Hahaha I got it! Thanks Jennifer Nordell