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A binary number may also refer to a rational number that has a finite representation in the binary numeral system, that is, the quotient of an integer by a power of two. The base-2 numeral system is a positional notation with a radix of 2. Each digit is referred to as bit, or binary digit.
In the base −2 representation, a signed number is represented using a number system with base −2. In conventional binary number systems, the base, or radix, is 2; thus the rightmost bit represents 2 0, the next bit represents 2 1, the next bit 2 2, and so on. However, a binary number system with base −2 is also possible.
Two's complement is the most common method of representing signed (positive, negative, and zero) integers on computers, [1] and more generally, fixed point binary values. Two's complement uses the binary digit with the greatest value as the sign to indicate whether the binary number is positive or negative; when the most significant bit is 1 the number is signed as negative and when the most ...
The representation has a limited precision. For example, only 15 decimal digits can be represented with a 64-bit real. If a very small floating-point number is added to a large one, the result is just the large one. The small number was too small to even show up in 15 or 16 digits of resolution, and the computer effectively discards it.
Least significant bit first means that the least significant bit will arrive first: hence e.g. the same hexadecimal number 0x12, again 00010010 in binary representation, will arrive as the (reversed) sequence 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0.
Binary number, a representation of numbers using only two digits (0 and 1) Binary function, a function that takes two arguments; Binary operation, a mathematical operation that takes two arguments; Binary relation, a relation involving two elements; Binary-coded decimal, a method for encoding for decimal digits in binary sequences
If errors in representation and computation are more important than the speed of conversion to and from display, a scaled binary representation may be used, which stores a decimal number as a binary-encoded integer and a binary-encoded signed decimal exponent. For example, 0.2 can be represented as 2 × 10 −1.
The modern binary number system, the basis for binary code, is an invention by Gottfried Leibniz in 1689 and appears in his article Explication de l'Arithmétique Binaire (English: Explanation of the Binary Arithmetic) which uses only the characters 1 and 0, and some remarks on its usefulness. Leibniz's system uses 0 and 1, like the modern ...