Counting
I'm kind of obsessed with counting systems. Maybe it's to do with the computery things I do for a living, but for some reason I find them fascinating. They are truly the language of nature. From the tiny acorns of 1+1=2 the mighty oaks of mathematics -and thus physics, the basis for much of our understanding of the natural world and modern lives- do grow. So let's do some counting! There are many counting systems but the best one we have come up with so far is known as the 'positional system' or 'place-value notation'. It's the one you use every day. Count up from 0-9 then carry the one, then count up from 0-9 again. This is base 10 because you count up 10 numbers before moving over one column. In computation we use binary which is a base 2 counting system. Simply count from 0-1 then carry the one then count from 0-1 again. Easy peasy! 16 8 4 2 1 1 0 1 0 1 The binary number above is representing 1+4+16=21. Binary is useful because it only uses two charc