Alright then. Since I do not want to disregard such a splendid discussion, I will attempt to structure our binary explanation to solve a basic mathematical problem.
Imagine that a male individual by the name of "John" is going to the market.
Within the market, we have the following items to purchase: {8 Apples, 4 Pears, 2 Kiwis, 1 Pineapple}
Now, suppose that the cost of said items is equivalent to the quantity of the specified items.
Because John is rather poor, we will need to somehow specify which items that John intends to purchase. This is where base-two is useful.
Since binary merely uses the two states of {0,1}, it is an appropriate solution to this problem.
If John intends to purchase only the pears and apples, this is the appropriate order:
{1,1,0,0}
If John intends to purchase only the kiwis and pineapples, this is the appropriate order:
{0,0,1,1}
If John intends to purchase all of the items, this is the appropriate order:
{1,1,1,1}
All of those solutions are fairly accurate simply because 0 and/or 1 represent off/on, specifically.
{1,1,1,1} = 8 + 4 + 2 + 1 = 15.
Hopefully this experiment with an array of values provides a clearer interest in base-two manipulation. |