how do computers know how to differentiate binary without there being spaces or separations?

Question

I know the jist of binary, but something that I have never understood is how it know where one “word” stops and another starts.

so if 9 is 1001 and 57 is 111001, how does the computer know that the “1001” in 111001 isn’t whatever 11 is and then the number 9, 1001? only having two digits, 1 and 0 seems like not enough to differentiate.

If you want to have the word “apple” written in binary, do you take the binary code of each letter and smoosh them together or is there a separate specific code for “apple”?

In: Technology

Answer 1

All numbers in the computer have a fixed number of bits – 8, 16, 32, and 64. You pad the left hand side with zeros to make it up to the right length

When you do maths on them, there’s an instruction for adding two 8 bit numbers, another instruction for adding two 16 bit numbers and so on – so that’s how it knows how long the numbers are