Understanding Binary – 1
Introduction
Computers are not as smart as you think. In fact they only know 2 things…
0 and 1
Everything else is told to the computer by a human, this is called programming.
Computers have millions of tiny circuits inside, for a computer
0 means turn a circuit off
1 means turn a circuit on
Humans need to learn the computers language to be able to tell computers what to do. The computers
language is Binary. Here is an example of what binary code looks like:
0101010001101000011010010111001100100000011010010111001100100000011001
The computer can only use 0s and 1s
So for a computer numbers go like is this…
Denary (our
numbers)
Binary
0
0
1
1
2
10
3
11
4
100
5
101
6
110
7
111
8
1000
9
1001
10
1010
11
1011
12
1100
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Using Binary
To help us to use binary, we are going to start by producing a simple table, making sure the numbers
keep doubling from 1:
128
64
32
16
8
4
2
1
To make the number 5, place a 1 under the numbers that you need and a 0 under the numbers that you
don’t…
128
0
64
0
32
0
16
0
8
0
4
1
2
0
1
1
2
0
1
1
So 5 for us, is 00000101 for the computer:
128
0
64
0
32
0
16
0
8
0
4
1
We can forget the first few 0s and our binary number 5 looks like this…
101
Task 1
Now use these tables to convert the denary numbers to binary:
3
128
64
32
16
8
4
2
1
11
2
128
64
32
16
8
4
2
1
10
0
128
64
32
16
8
4
2
1
0
6
128
64
32
16
8
4
2
1
110
17
128
64
32
16
8
4
2
1
10001
42
128
64
32
16
8
4
2
1
101010
71
128
64
32
16
8
4
2
1
1000111
146
128
64
32
16
8
4
2
1
10010010
255
128
64
32
16
8
4
2
1
11111111
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Task 2
Now it’s time to convert binary to OUR digits:
24
128
64
32
16
8
4
2
1
00011000
5
128
64
32
16
8
4
2
1
00000101
22
128
64
32
16
8
4
2
1
00010110
107
128
64
32
16
8
4
2
1
01101011
120
128
64
32
16
8
4
2
1
01111000
164
128
64
32
16
8
4
2
1
10100100
4
2
1
??
Task 3
A few little challenges for you…
1. Show your shoe size in binary
??
128
64
32
16
8
2. Show the date of the month you were born in binary
??
128
64
32
16
8
4
2
1
??
16
8
4
2
1
??
8
4
2
1
??
2
1
??
3. Show your age in binary
??
128
64
32
4. Show your height in cm in binary
??
128
64
32
16
5. Show the amount of siblings you have in binary
??
128
64
32
16
8
4
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Task 4
De-code these facts…
1. More than 110010% of the people in the world have never made or received a telephone call.
128
64
32
16
8
4
2
1
50%
1
14
2. Gorillas sleep as much as 1110 hours per day.
128
64
32
16
8
4
2
3. You can tell the sex of a horse by its teeth. Most males have 101000, females have 100100.
128
64
32
16
8
4
2
1
40
128
64
32
16
8
4
2
1
36
4. On average, 1100 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily.
128
64
32
16
8
4
2
1
12
5. A giraffe can clean its ears with its 10101 inch tongue!
128
64
32
16
8
4
2
1
21
6. A man named Charles Osborne had the hiccups for 1000101 years!
128
64
32
16
8
4
2
1
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