Electronics > Beginners
Why binary is represented by two bits 0 and 1 and not three bits?
Canis Dirus Leidy:
--- Quote from: tip.can19 on October 25, 2019, 08:51:34 am ---I was wondering if digital systems work in binary 0 and 1, why is it so? Why not have 0, 1 and 2 (or some other constant/variable to make it three) and let three numbers represent a digital system?
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You accidentally Setun. It was developed in the late fifties as an inexpensive minicomputer, so ferrite-diode cells (AKA magnetic amplifiers) were chosen as the element base (vacuum tubes were too unreliable, germanium transistors too expensive and scarce). And when studying the three-cycles shift register (base block of magnetic logic) schematic revealed that small changes in ferrite cores coupling circuits can provide possibility to parallel (but not simultaneous) transmission of two series of pulses. As a result, the machine used a balanced ternary system (-1, 0, 1).
rstofer:
--- Quote from: T3sl4co1l on October 25, 2019, 04:43:52 pm ---It is provable that higher number systems are less efficient. Simply: while a number in say, base 10, requires fewer digits than in base 2 or 3, the number of bits required to implement each digit is large (~log(10)), so the system is inefficient. If we formalize this, we get a solution for the most compact number system: it turns out this is base e; the digits are often called nits (natural bits).
e ~= 2.78 is very close to 3, so trinary is very attractive as a number system. Given the implementation challenge, we use binary instead, but we can see it's still pretty efficient as number systems go.
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I remember reading an article about this analysis a long time ago. The optimum number system, based on cost, was base 'e'. I don't think I would care to work with such a system but if the compiler writers could implement C I guess it would work out fine.
Base two is simple because anybody can count to 1.
https://www.autodesk.com/products/eagle/blog/bob-widlar-life-engineering-legend/
Old Printer:
Pioneer and Personality, that's a graceful way of putting it :)
tooki:
And I would add that there are situations where we use non-binary encodings for data, like in some types of data transmission (e.g. ADSL). But it's due to very specific constraints (like the frequency bandwidth of a standard copper phone line, in the case of DSL), where the complexity of nonbinary encodings is outweighed by the benefits.
Bud:
This is to meet political correctness requirement to include idiot people, because....
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