Computers work with binary, but what does this even mean?
Binary is just a number system with a different base. Instead of base 10 (decimal), it is base 2 (binary).
Base 10 has 10 possible numbers: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
Base 2 has only 2 possible numbers: 0, 1
This means as we want to represent higher and higher numbers, we start to add more digits:
| English |
Decimal |
Binary |
| Zero |
0 |
0 |
| One |
1 |
1 |
| Two |
2 |
10 |
| Three |
3 |
11 |
| Four |
4 |
100 |
| Five |
5 |
101 |
| Six |
6 |
110 |
| Seven |
7 |
111 |
| Eight |
8 |
1000 |
| Nine |
9 |
1001 |
| Ten |
10 |
1010 |
| Eleven |
11 |
1011 |
| Twelve |
12 |
1100 |
| Thirteen |
13 |
1101 |
| Fourteen |
14 |
1110 |
| Fifteen |
15 |
1111 |
| Sixteen |
16 |
10000 |
💡 Tip[!tip]
You may see the joke "there are 10 types of people, those who understand binary and those who don't."