I’m struggling in class with understanding and calculating😭😭 It’s just not clicking for me
In: 6
They’re different ways of counting up.
In “normal” (decimal) counting, we have ten symbols: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9. We start counting up at 0, and when we get to 9, we’re out of symbols, so the system we use is to put a 0 there, put a 1 one space to the left, and then start counting up again. Repeat as long as necessary.
In binary, there’s only two symbols: 1 0. Again we start counting up at 0, but as soon as we hit 1, we’re out of symbols, so we again place our 1 one space to the left, and start counting up again.
In hex, we instead have sixteen symbols: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F. Now we don’t have to move over one space until we’ve counted up to F, where you start over at 1 again.
As it turns out, using binary is useful for computers, because they’re all based on circuits that have two states: on (1) and off (0). Decimal counting is arbitrary, but works well for beings with five fingers on each hand. Hex is useful for fitting larger numbers in less space, which is why they’re common in computing.
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