What is binary?

Question

What is binary?

Answer 1

Binary (Base-2) is a system of numbering things, somewhat like the system we use normally (decimal (Base-10)).

The main difference with binary is the fact that no digits above 1 are used. To give a rough idea, I'll take a look at some decimal numbers.

10:

To understand what makes 10 10, we need to look at how it's structured. Take the number, and separate it into columns, much as you would when adding a lot of numbers. The two columns we have with this number are the "units" column, and the "tens" column. As we have a "1" in the tens column, and a "0" in the units column, we have:

1*10 + 0*1 = 10

This may or may not seem obvious now, but it's useful later. It's useful to note that the columns increase as we go left in a decimal number - multiplying by ten each time (1, 10, 100, 1000, etc). Here are a couple more:

42:

4*10 + 2*1 = 42

12345:

1*10000 + 2*1000 + 3*100 + 4*10 + 5*1 = 12345

With binary, the columns have different values. The furthest right column is still the units column, but, moving left, we now multiply by two, rather than ten - giving us 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 and 64 as the first few column values. Here's an example number, expanded into a decimal number using the same rough method that I used above to demonstrate the columns of a decimal number:

100110

1*32 + 0*16 + 0*8 + 1*4 + 1*2 + 0*1 = 38

I hope that makes some amount of sense! You might want to take a look at the Wikipedia page on binary if you need more clarification.

Answer 2

It is a number system with base 2.

Normally we use base 10 count to 9 then carry over.

In binary you count 1 then carry over.

00 - 0

01 - 1

10 - 2

11 - 3

100 - 4

Answer 3

like 101010001010101

Answer 4

It is the math of 0 (zero) and 1's (ones). You can never have more than 0 or 1 in binary math, but they are also referred to "on" and "off" where 1 is on and 0 is off. That is why, in dealing with Internet protocol (IP) your IP address can be in binary...the computer only understands 0 and 1.