
Fundamentals
The use of just two levels of electrical voltage or current, leading to the use
of digits 0 and
1
means that a number system using only these digits must be
used for electrical counting. A number system which uses only two digits is
called a binary system, and the simplest binary system is one that follows the
same pattern as we use for denary numbers, using columns for each power of
the base number. Since the base number is 2, this means that we have
columns for units, twos, fours, eights and so on, since 2° = 1, 2
1
= 2,
2
2
= 4, 2
3
= 8. Arithmetic can then be reduced to the rules:
0 + 0 = 0 0 + 1 = 1 1 + 1 = 10
all of which ca ...