Binary Digits

A Binary Digit can only be 0 or 1

Binary Number
A Binary Number is made up Binary Digits.
In the computer world "binary digit" is often shortened to the word "bit"

More Than One Digit

So, there are only two ways we can have a binary digit ("0" and "1", or "On" and "Off") ... but
what about 2 or more binary digits?
Let's write them all down, starting with 1 digit (you can test it yourself using the switches):

0
1
0 00
0
1 01
0 10
1
1 11
0 000
0

1 001

0
0 010
1

1 011

0 100
0

1 101

1
0 110
1

1 111
0 0000
0
0

1 0001
0 0010

1 0011

0
0 0100
0
1

1 0101
0 0110

1 0111
0 1000

0
0

1 1001
0 1010

1 1011

1
0 1100
0
1

1 1101
0 1110

1 1111

And, in fact, we have created the first 16 binary numbers:

Decimal: 0 1 2 3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
Binary: 0 1 10 11 100 101 110 111 1000 1001 1010 1011 1100 1101 1110 1111
This is useful! To remember the sequence of binary numbers just think:

"0" and "1" {0,1}

then repeat "0" and "1" again but with a "1" in front: {0,1,10,11}

then repeat those four with "1"s as a third digit: {0,1,10,11,100,101,110,111}

and so on!

(It is also how we count using decimal numbers, but we then also use 2, 3 , 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or
9.)
Now find out how to use Binary to count past 1,000 on your fingers:

Binary Digits ... They Double!

Also notice that each time we add another binary digit we double the possibilities.
Why double? Because we to take all the previous possible positions and match them with a
"0" and a "1" like above.

So just one binary digit has 2 possible positions

Two binary digits have 4 possible positions

Three have 8 possible positions

Four have 16 possible positions

Five have 32 possible positions

Six have 64 possible positions

etc.

Using exponents, this can be shown as:

No of Digits
1
2

Formula

Settings

2
2

24

16

25

32

26

64

etc...

etc...

etc...

Example: when we have 50 binary digits (or 50 things that can only have two positions
each), how many different ways is that?
Answer 250 = 2 2 2 2 ... (fifty of these) = 1,125,899,906,842,624
So, a binary number with 50 digits could have 1,125,899,906,842,624 different values.
Or to put it another way, it could show a number up to 1,125,899,906,842,623 (note: this is
one less than the total number of values, because one of the values is 0).

Chess Board
There is an old Indian legend about a King who was challenged to a game of chess by a
visiting Sage. The King asked "what is the prize if you win?".
The Sage said he would simply like some grains of rice: one on the first square, 2 on the
second, 4 on the third and so on, doubling on each square. The King was surprised by this
humble request.
Well, the Sage won, so how many grains of rice should he receive?
On the first square: 1 grain, on the second square: 2 grains (for a total of 3) and so on like
this:
Square
1
2
3
4

Grains
1
2
4
8

Total
1
3
7
15

10

512

1,027

20

524,288

1,048,575

30

53,6870,912

1,073,741,823

64

???

???

By the 30th square you can see it is already a lot of rice! A billion grains of rice is about 25
tonnes (1,000 grains is about 25g ... I weighed some!)

Notice that the Total of any square is 1 less than the Grains on the next square (Example:
square 3's total is 7, and square 4 has 8 grains). So the total of all squares is a
formula: 2n1, where n is the number of the square. For example, for square 3, the total
is 231 = 81 = 7
So, to fill all 64 squares in a chess board would need:
2641 = 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 grains (460 billion tonnes of rice),
many times more rice than in the whole kingdom.
So, the power of binary doubling is nothing to be taken lightly (460 billion tonnes is not
light!)
(By the way, in the legend the Sage reveals himself to be Lord Krishna and tells the King
that he doesn't have to pay the debt at once, but can pay him over time, just serve rice to
pilgrims every day until the debt is paid off.)

Hexadecimal
Lastly, let us look at the special relationship between Binary and Hexadecimal.
There are 16 Hexadecimal digits, and we already know that 4 binary digits have 16 possible
values. Well, this is exactly how they relate to each other:

Binary:
0 1 10 11 100 101 110 111 1000 1001 1010 1011 1100 1101 1110 1111
Hexadecimal: 0 1 2 3
4
5
6
7
8
9
A
B
C
D
E
F
So, when people use computers (which prefer binary numbers), it is a lot easier to use the
single hexadecimal digit rather than 4 binary digits.
For example, the binary number "100110110100" is "9B4" in hexadecimal. I know which I
would prefer to write!