Binary KS3

 

Ever wondered why an on/off switch has the numbers 1 and 0 on it? The 1 represents the ON position and the 0 represents the OFF position. One simply means that power can pass through the switch to complete a circuit whilst 0 means the power is prevented from passing through.

Well, this is what happens in the CPU (Central Processing Unit) inside a computer. As the CPU performs the calculations required by the software in use it will set some of the pathways through its circuits to ON and some to OFF.

In our everyday lives we use the Denary (or decimal) counting system based around ten different characters (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9). Computers convert these numbers into a the BINARY system using only the 1 and 0 characters.

Both systems use place values, columns representing values.

Decimal	1000	100	10	1
Binary	8	4	2	1

Binary numbers can be converted to decimal (denary) numbers and back again.
0111, for example would represent the decimal number 7.

Could you complete the rest of the table below?