[Sign up for Today in Science, a free daily newsletter] In the usual decimal system, the number 17 (that is, a 1 followed by a 7) indicates that you have to calculate 10 + 7 × 1 (17 = 1 × 10 + 7 ...

Conversion of binary to decimal numbers is often needed in firmware. And it’s done easily enough if multiplication and division by ten are acceptable.

Warnings Excel will only produce binary numbers with up to 10 bits. This means that it can only convert decimal numbers greater than -513 and less than 512.

The formulation of the binary number system essentially laid the groundwork for digital circuitry, computers, and the field of computer science, as we know it in today’s technologically-advanced ...

In principle, any number can be represented by any number system, whether the latter be base 10, base 60, base 3 or base 2. The math works perfectly in each case. In the usual decimal system, the ...