To add another digit to the coding system would mean adding the ability to determine the strength i. The hardware to do ternary calculations - calculations involved three possible values - already exists. The first computer capable of performing such calculations was created in , and the first modern, electric version - the ternary computer - was built by the Soviet Union in While a ternary computer is potentially cheaper to manufacture and potentially more efficient in some ways, it seems that the rate of mass-production of binary computers has stalled further development.
Having said that, it is likely the way transistors are arranged and how they perform calculations that is the real reason we have stuck with binary for this long. Binary math is much easier for a computer to understand than ternary math. If you stack transistor switches together, you create a logic gate. The gate compares two different input types i.
This is how computers make decisions and is the basic principle of computer programming, with a program being made up of logical sets of instructions. These operations are based on a branch of mathematics called Boolean algebra. Boolean Logic states that there are four possible outcomes if you have two possible inputs as in a binary system.
Each of the logic gate operations can be expressed in a truth table:. Computers use binary numbers because this is the easiest and simplest way to record and process the electrical currents that run through their hardware. If there is an electrical current, the transistor switch is on. The transistor switch is off if there is no electrical current. An on switch is represented by a 1 and an off switch by a 0. Each switch represents one single bit of information, and eight bits are known as a byte.
This is how information is stored in computer memory. Ternary systems do exist but are not in common use. Author: Trey Williams. Why Do Computers use Binary Numbers? Binary vs.
When you push it, it is on. It springs back to off when you release it, which is different from a toggle switch, but it still is a binary device. There are many advantages to binary. Here are four somewhat overlapping important reasons for using binary:. These characteristics of binary were realized by Claude Shannon, a mathematician at Bell Telephone Laboratories. Other numeral systems exist because there are specific uses where a certain numeral system is easier to use and offers advantages over another.
Binary and hexadecimal numbers are widely used in computer science. Binary numbers can be considered the very basic representation of a number in an electronic device. Converting to and from a decimal will be covered in another article. This will help to explain why binary numbers are so important. The very first computers used binary numbers, and they are still used today. Every computer is made up of many electronic components.
That is why a basic knowledge of electronics is needed to understand how and why binary numbers are used in computers. A computer is built with many connections and components, which are used to transfer and store data, as well as communicate with other components. Most of that storing, transferring, and communicating happens with digital electronics.
In electronics, a voltage level or current flow is a way to represent a value.
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