#1,079 – The Binary Numeral System

Humans normally represent numeric values using the decimal (base 10) numeral system.  We can also represent numbers as binary, or base 2.

The binary numeral system uses only two digits (numeric symbols), rather than 10.  You represent a numerical value using a string of these binary digits (or bits).  The two digits used are 0 and 1.

Moving from right to left, the digits in a base 2 system represent powers of 2 (1, 2, 4, 8, etc. or 2^0, 2^1, 2^2, 2^3, etc).  The value of a number represented as binary is the sum of the value of each digit multiplied by the appropriate power of 2.  For example:

As an example, the binary number 101101 is equivalent to the decimal number 45.