#base two

BIT

A bit is the basic unit of information in computing and digital communications. A bit can have only one of two values, and may therefore be physically implemented with a two-state device. These values are most commonly represented as either a 0or1. The term bit is a portmanteau of binary digit.

A bit is a single numeric value, either '1' or '0', that encodes a single unit of digital information. A byte is a sequence of bits; usually eight bits equal one byte.

For example, in Internet Protocol (IP) networking, IP addresses contain 32 bits or 4 bytes. The bits encode the network address so that it can be shared on the network. The bytes divide the bits into groups.

The IP address 192.168.0.1, for instance, is encoded with the following bits and bytes:

Bits are grouped into bytes to, generally speaking, increase the efficiency of computer hardware, including network equipment, disks and memory.

Binary Numbers and Base Two

Binary numbers all consist of combinations of the two digits '0' and '1'. These are some examples of binary numbers:

1 10 1010 11111011 11000000 10101000 00001100 01011101

Engineers and mathematicians call the binary numbering system a base-two system because binary numbers only contain the two digits '0' and '1'. By comparison, our normal decimal number system is a base-ten system that uses the ten digits '0' through '9'.