: Why are computers limited to 0s and 1s? Why can’t we use numbers like 2s and 3s for more Efficiency?
In: 17
Computers use electricity which is either on (1) or off (0) to represent information and data.
In theory, we could use voltage levels to store 2s and 3s. For example:
0.0 – 0.4v: 0
0.5 – 1.0v: 1
1.1 – 1.4v: 2
1.5 – 2.0v: 3
However, there are small fluctuations in voltage that occur for various reasons, meaning data can be corrupted (so, in the above example if the voltage was 0.4v and fluctuated by 0.1v we could misrepresent a 0 as a 1).
We gain “efficiency” by having multiple wires storing the 1 or 0 at the same time, and being able to read/write multiple 1s/0s simultaneously instead.
Latest Answers