CH 11000: Think Binary
Before we delve into the concept of the binary system, the idea of counting needs to be revisited briefly. Our basic building blocks for composing any number are naturally the digits 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9. Every number is comprised of those numbers. Some people believe that we use 10 digits because we have 10 digits, namely our fingers and toes. Either way, there is no reason that we have to use 10 digits to count any number. In fact, there is a well-known numeral system at work that is probably in front of your nose every day. This is called the binary system and is used by the digital world. What this means is that everything that you see on the screen is actually understood by the computer as values in the binary numeral system.
Binary uses a 0 and a 1 to compute anything. To translate a regular number like 17 into binary takes a couple quick steps. First, remember that all numbers in binary are just zeroes and ones. Next, think of binary numbers as having a series of slots, in which each slot is some power of two. The first slot is 20, or 1, and then 21 or 2, then 22 or 4 and so on. For each slot that is a 1, you add that slot's value to all the other slots that have a 1. So first imagine some powers of 2: 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2, and 1 (20). We can arrive at any number by adding the proper sequence of these numbers. You might be wondering about decimal numbers, they are arrived at in a slightly modified method.
So back to turning 17 into binary, the powers of two needed to sum to 17 are 24 and 20 . Therefore we arrive at 10001 as being 17. When you see 17 on a computer, the computer understands it as 10001.
The time is now 100110 past 1100 AKA 12:38