Appendix D. Number Systems

 

Here are only numbers ratified.

 
 --William Shakespeare
 

Nature has some sort of arithmetic-geometrical coordinate system, because nature has all kinds of models. What we experience of nature is in models, and all of nature’s models are so beautiful.

It struck me that nature’s system must be a real beauty, because in chemistry we find that the associations are always in beautiful whole numbers—there are no fractions.

 
 --Richard Buckminster Fuller

OBJECTIVES

In this appendix you’ll learn:

  • To understand basic number systems concepts, such as base, positional value and symbol value.

  • To understand how to work with numbers represented in the binary, octal and hexadecimal number systems.

  • To abbreviate binary numbers as octal numbers ...

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