Advantage of binary no system Binary number system:

System of numbers to base two, using combinations of the digits 1 and 0. Codes based on binary numbers are used to represent instructions and data in all modern digital computers, the values of the binary digits (contracted to bits) being stored or transmitted as, for example, open/closed switches, magnetized/unmagnetized disks and tapes, and high/low voltages in circuits. The value of any position in a binary number increases by powers of 2 (doubles) with each move from right to left (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, and so on). For example, 1011 in the binary number system represents (1 8) + (0 4) + (1 2) + (1 1), which adds up to 11 in the decimal system. The value of any position in a normal decimal, or base-10, number increases by powers of 10 with each move from right to left (1, 10, 100, 1,000, 10,000, and so on). For example, the decimal number 2,567 stands for (2 1,000) + (5 100) + (6 10) + (7 1).

Advantage:

The binary number system, base two, uses only two symbols, 0 and 1. Two is the smallest whole number that can be used as the base of a number system. For many years, mathematicians saw base two as a primitive system and overlooked the potential of the binary system as a tool for developing computer science and many electrical devices. Base two has several other names, including the binary positional numeration system and the dyadic system. Many civilizations have used the binary system in some form, including inhabitants of Australia, Polynesia, South America, and Africa. Ancient Egyptian arithmetic depended on the binary system. Records of Chinese mathematics trace the binary system back to the fifth century and possibly earlier. The Chinese were probably the first to appreciate the simplicity of noting integers as sums of powers of 2, with each coefficient being 0 or 1. For example, the number 10 would be written as 1010: 10= 1 x 23 + 0 x 22 + 1 x 21 + 0 x 20 Users of the binary system face something of a trade-off. The two-digit system has a basic purity that makes it suitable for solving problems of modern technology. However, the process of writing out binary numbers and using them in mathematical computation is long and cumbersome, making it impractical to use binary numbers for everyday calculations. There are no shortcuts for converting a number from the commonly used denary scale (base ten) to the binary scale.

Over the years, several prominent mathematicians have recognized the potential of the binary system. Francis Bacon (1561-1626) invented a "bilateral alphabet code," a binary system that used the symbols A and B rather than 0 and 1. In his philosophical work, The Advancement of Learning , Bacon used his binary system to develop ciphers and codes. These studies laid the foundation for what was to become word processing in the late twentieth century. The American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII), adopted in 1966, accomplishes the same purpose as Bacon's alphabet code. Bacon's discoveries were all the more remarkable because at the time Bacon was writing, Europeans had no information about the Chinese work on binary systems. A German mathematician, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646-1716), learned of the binary system from Jesuit missionaries who had lived in China. Leibniz was quick to recognize the advantages of the binary system over the denary system, but he is also well known for his attempts to transfer binary thinking to theology. He speculated that the creation of the universe may have been based on a binary scale, where "God, represented by the number 1, created the Universe out of nothing, represented by 0." This widely quoted analogy rests on an error, in that it is not strictly correct to equate nothing with zero. The English mathematician and logician George Boole (18151864) developed a system of Boolean logic that could be used to analyze any statement that could be broken down into binary form (for example, true/false, yes/no, male/female).

Boole's work was ignored by mathematicians for 50 years, until a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology realized that Boolean algebra could be applied to problems of electronic circuits.