Ever wonder what language a computer speaks? Most of you know that computers store information in the form of ones and zeros, but you may not understand how those ones and zeros can do so much. So here is my explanation of the binary number system.

The first thing that makes understanding binary easier is understanding the number system that we humans use most often. Humans use a base 10 number system (10^0 = 1, 10^1 = 10, 10^2 = 100,...). We have a maximum of ten digits (0-9) to represent a specific number per power of ten. The number 456 breaks down to 4 * 10^2 + 5 * 10^1 + 6 * 10^0. If you add the number 14 to 456 you first add the 4 to the 6 and you then carry the resulting 10 as a 1 added to the 5. Binary is based on powers of 2. (2^0 = 1, 2^1 = 2, 2^2 = 4, 2^3 = 8,...) Numbers are reprented using 1 and 0. So the number 1 in the base 10 number system is represented by the binary number 1 (2^0 = 1). Not much difference there. The number 2 in base 10 is represented in binary with the number 10. No that is not a ten. 10 is broken down as 1 * 2^1 = 2 + 0 * 2^0 = 0. The number 3 in base 10 is represented by the binary number 11. That is 1 * 2^1 + 1 * 2^0. In binary 1 + 1 is 10.

Each place that holds a 1 or a 0 is called a bit. Bits are basically a switch and works just like the light switch in your walls. The switch can either be on (1) or off (0). Computers use logical groups (logical for very specific reasons) of eights. Eight bits make a byte.

You see that one byte can store any number between 0-255 which is one less than the next power of 2 which when talking about a byte would be 2^8. So the number 255 in binary is stored as 11111111 (2^7 + 2^6 + 2^5 + 2^4 + 2^3 + 2^2 + 2^1 + 2^0 = 255).

Computer geeks say that there are 10 types of people in the world, those that understand binary and those that do not. Next time I will talk about how a computer uses bytes to represent everything from your digital snapshots to your bank balance.