Computers look like they understand numbers and letters as we know them and type them in but that is not the way computers work. Instead every character it sees is coverted into a combination of just 2 numbers and they are 0 and 1. Some of you may recall from your school days that expressing numbers in just 0 and 1 only is binary code (bi=2).
Our number system uses the 10 numbers 0-9 and is known in maths terms as the decimal system. Binary, by comparison, uses just 2 numbers 0 and 1 and every number and letter as we know it can be expressed in 0's and 1's. This works perfectly in computers because at their core computers work by a series electronic signals or pulses and only understand 2 instructions - 'on' and 'off'. Off = 0 and On =1. That's taken some of the mystery out of it !
Without getting into the mathematics of creating binary number let's just look at how the numbers 0-10 look like, expressed in computer binary code:
| No | In Binary |
| 0 | 00000000 |
| 1 | 00000001 |
| 2 | 00000010 |
| 3 | 00000011 |
| 4 | 00000100 |
| 5 | 00000101 |
| 6 | 00000110 |
| 7 | 00000111 |
| 8 | 00001000 |
| 9 | 00001001 |
| 10 | 00001010 |
Likewise for letters - A is expressed as 01000001 for example (see more ) . If you would like to see how a computer sees your name just type it in this text to binary convertor
