Byte-sized Science

Here is something few people realize. Computers, smart phones, and computer networks are all basically stupid. They are really bad at counting. In fact, they can only count to 1. Yes, just to 1, but to be fair, they start at 0.

This is known as Binary. Everything that can be represented from a pixel on a screen to a googleplex (1 followed by 100 zeroes) can be done using Binary math.

For ease of examples, a Zero can be used to represent something that is off. A One can be used to represent something that is on.

Now, you can count like a computer.

Of course, computers can count really fast. To do so, they can use Zero and One to represent other numbers.

To do so, computers combine these zeroes and ones into Bits and Bytes.

For example to represent the number 0, the computer can use 0, 0000, 00000000, 0000000000000000. They are all the same thing. Zero.

The number Four can be written using three bits: 100, where 1 equals 2 * 2, followed by two zeros.

Shortcuts are everywhere for computers.

Using three bits is called Octal. The biggest number it can count to is 7. That is 111, where the first 1 is (2 ^ 2) + (2 ^ 1) + (2 ^ 0). Remember that any number raised to the power of 0 is defined to be 1.


Using four bits is called Hexadecimal. The biggest number it can count to is 15. Ah, but you might wonder how two digit numbers can be represented by a single character. Easy, instead of using 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 & 15, we simply use A, B, C, D, E, & F to stand for those numbers. Thus,

1010 Base 16 is the number 10, again the first one is 2^3, 2^2, 2^1 & 2^0.

If you want to count really high, you can use Base 32, Base 64, Base 128 or beyond. That takes you into really big number country.


Remember, computers are dumb.