suwunk
2011-11-17, 05:05 AM
Basic Explanation
Did you know that everything a computer does is based on ones and zeroes? It's hard to imagine, because you hear people talking about the absolutely gargantuan (huge) numbers that computers "crunch". But all those huge numbers - they're just made up of ones and zeros.
It's kind of like the computer is made up of a bunch of lightswitches, and each lightswitch controls just one lightbulb. On or Off. One or Zero. But if you took all of those lightbulbs together, and said "Let's make each sequence of On-and-Off represent a different number!" Well then, you could get some pretty large numbers.
Details:
http://www.theproblemsite.com/codes/binary.asp
Did you know that everything a computer does is based on ones and zeroes? It's hard to imagine, because you hear people talking about the absolutely gargantuan (huge) numbers that computers "crunch". But all those huge numbers - they're just made up of ones and zeros.
It's kind of like the computer is made up of a bunch of lightswitches, and each lightswitch controls just one lightbulb. On or Off. One or Zero. But if you took all of those lightbulbs together, and said "Let's make each sequence of On-and-Off represent a different number!" Well then, you could get some pretty large numbers.
Details:
http://www.theproblemsite.com/codes/binary.asp