What is Binary? смотреть онлайн

Ever wonder exactly what binary is and what it does? Well you have come to the right place! In this video I explain in-depth what binary is, what it can do, and why we use it in computers!

Binary can be seen from many different perspectives. It can be seen as a system to represent numeral values like the decimal, or hexadecimal system. It can also be seen as a way to perform logical operations in real-world or digital systems.

Let's look at what binary is before computers were invented. Binary can be seen as another way of representing numerical data. Us humans naturally developed the decimal system because we have 10 fingers. The decimal system is a way to represent any number as a series of digits each being 0 to 9. Binary is a lot like this system but instead of being base 10, it's base 2, meaning instead of each digit being 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9 it is 0, or 1.

Now lets look at why we chose to use binary in computers instead of decimals... If in our everyday life we count and do math in decimal why didn't we use that for computers; what made binary better? A few reasons for this choice was engineering limitations.

In a circuit digital values are transmitted in the form of a voltage. In our example we will be looking at one way of organizing a 6 volt logic circuit. Binary 0 can be shown as a signal from 0-1.5 volts; and Binary 1 can be shown as a signal from 4.5-6 volts. This is great because those ranges are 1.5 volts wide giving us a nice range to deal with any potential errors. Something even greater is that we have a large buffer zone in the middle for unexpected voltage gains or drops that could cause errors.

If we chose a decimal system we would have much smaller ranges; even if we didn't have a buffer zone. Our ranges would be Logic 0= 0-2/3 volts; and Logic 1=2/3-4/3 volts etc. This is bad because our ranges are small and we don't have much room for error.

Another problem with using the decimal system with computers would be data storage... In hard drive disks we have plates that store values magnetically by having a magnetic field direction. With binary we only need two directions up, and down. But with decimal we would need 10, and that can seen as getting very messy very fast.

Another thing binary is great for is logic; in most processes data can be interpreted as 2 possible values True (1) and False(0)... meaning if we used decimal we would have 8 extra unnecessary values. This is yet another reason why binary is amazing; and why computers work great with it!

Anyways hopefully after watching this you feel you learned more about what binary, and why and how we use it! If you have any questions about this video or suggestions for other videos please let me know; I would love to hear from you! Thanks for watching!