Electronics > Beginners

Why binary is represented by two bits 0 and 1 and not three bits?

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tggzzz:

--- Quote from: paulca on October 28, 2019, 11:04:48 am ---
--- Quote from: tggzzz on October 28, 2019, 10:19:11 am ---
--- Quote from: paulca on October 28, 2019, 10:05:49 am ---
--- Quote ---Glider pilot's aphorism: "there is no substitute for span". Retort: "There is a substitute: skill+imagination. But you can buy span".

--- End quote ---

As a paraglider pilot from a windy country, the bigger the span the more likely you'll be dragged like a rag doll up the hill :)  Kite surfers tell me they have a 9m2 wing... mine is 29m2 and in a 15mph wind, in it's power zone will pull a family car.

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Yeah, but you can't go at 150kt, nor up to 37k ft (intentionally at least!), and there is the noticable possibility that the oversized handkerchief might collapse. Me biassed? Shurely shome mishtake.

(In the absence of hills, I was towed aloft under a 'chute behind a car on an airfield a couple of times, and have landed in a light aircraft 1/7 of the times I took off in one :) )

--- End quote ---

LOL.  Unfortunately paraglider pilots have found themselves up there before.  Found unconscious, hypoxic and covered in hail storm bruises, but alive.

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Nasty. I suppose the hypothermia partially offset the effects of hypoxia.

I do remember a report of a competition in the Phillipines(?) where about 40 competitors were carried up by a cumulonimbus and turned into corpsicles.

But competitors always push the envelope (ho ho), and long may it remain so. ISTR that about 10% of the top glider pilots have died in competitions.


--- Quote ---I suppose the only advantage I have is that I can carry my glider to the top of the hill and launch and don't need a trailer to get it out of a farmers field :P  Who needs to go faster than 25knots anyway, it's much easier staying in small thermals when you can orbit inside 10 meters :)

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Oooh, picky picky picky :)

I've flown (just) solo at 29kt, and tandem at about 20kt in an old "barge" trainer. I've also watched the latter loop with a noticeably small radius; must have scared the bejasus out of the woodworm :)

More entertainingly, I've been in a updraft (can't have been a thermal with unbroken stratus at 3k4ft), at 10kt up, banking at 70degrees, pulling 3G for a minute or so until cloudbase. We kept an eye on the other glider at the same height by looking upwards at the top of his head :) That was a new experience for an instructor that had been instructing for half a century.

paulca:

--- Quote from: tggzzz on October 28, 2019, 11:21:21 am ---3k4ft), at 10kt up, banking at 70degrees, pulling 3G for a minute or so until cloudbase. We kept an eye on the other glider at the same height by looking upwards at the top of his head :) That was a new experience for an instructor that had been instructing for half a century.

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Only an electronics engineer would report 3400ft as 3k4ft :)

I'm fairly green and to be honest I haven't been doing it for a few years, but my first experience of a proper thermal under my hanky really freaked me.  The lines stretched, pinged and sung, I was pinned down into the seat, vario screaming faster and higher pitched beeping, I could visibly see the hill in front of me drop away...  then I shot straight through it and the instructor was like "Turn Paul, Turn, you gotta turn in lift."  I was like, "F... that, I'm going back into that beast.", the vario measured 3m/s vertical peak.  Just a little hill side thermal, but a fun ride.

pwlps:
From yet another perspective: many fast algorithms are based on two-way branching (e.g. binary search) and these can often be implemented more efficiently with binary number arithmetic.  See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CORDIC  (often used in FPGA implementations).

TomS_:

--- 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?

Is there a specific reason behind this? Just curious.

Thank you,

--- End quote ---

One way you might be able to understand would be to look at the construction of a binary adder circuit, and then compare it to a circuit that could add various other levels or values of voltages or signals, and compare the complexity.

Its very easy to add and subtract in binary (and in relation to binary only having two states, the key is "bi" which means "two") with minimal circuitry. Once you can add and subtract you can also, with some repetition, multiply and divide quite easily too.

You might also take a look at Ben Eater on YouTube. He has a series where he builds a small "CPU" out of logic chips, of which part is an ALU. He goes in to some detail about how various functions in an ALU work.

Analogue computers were available, and Dave has a video about opamps with some information about how they can be used to do certain functions like add or multiply. But, there is usually always a reason one technology surpasses all others that do the same job - and its usually always lower cost. And you dont normally get lower cost from more complex things.

TimFox:

--- Quote from: tggzzz on October 28, 2019, 08:44:23 am ---
--- Quote from: paulca on October 28, 2019, 08:26:09 am ---Although, be careful, when you look at the analogue side of digital circuits they are very often tri-state.  1, 0 and floating.  The later is sometimes a burden, but sometimes can be used to your advantage.  You might have a chip which has a 0 or a 1 (high or low) on it's outputs, but when you pull the "chip enable" low they disconnect the the outputs which gives you a third state which you can pull high or low with a resistor for your purposes.

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All "digital" circuits are actually analogue; that's most obvious with ECL and derivatives. Some CMOS logic gates can be used as linear amplifiers.

Logic gates interpret input voltages/currents as digital signals. When those inputs are within defined limits, the gate's outputs will (eventually) be within limits that other gates can interpret as a digital signal.

The few digital circuits that you might encounter include photon counting devices and femtoamp circuits.

--- End quote ---

Relay logic uses truly discrete binary signals

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