Base 10 Research Paper

670 Words3 Pages
Switching from base 10 to another base may sound difficult, but it’s usually pretty easy. It seems pointless at first, but they’re used in a lot of things. Bases 2 (binary) and 16 (hexadecimal) are in computer graphics, so that increases the fact that it needs to learned more. In base 10 (decimal), we have unique digits for one through nine. We don’t have a unique digit for ten, however. We say and write a unique number, but we don’t have a unique digit. 10 isn’t just ‘ten’. It is 1 ten and 0 ones – essentially the same thing, but it captures the main idea. When we run out of unique digits, we bring in zero – that shows we have none of what place it is in. 10 (as said before) is 1 ten and 0 ones. Same thing with the tens column – when we have 99 and we don’t have any numbers left we use two zeroes. 100 is one hundred, no tens, and no ones. Then 1000, or one thousand, no hundreds, no tens, and no ones, then 10000, and so on. Each one is ten times larger than before, making it, therefore, base 10. The only reason most people consider base 10 natural is because base 10 is the first thing people are taught. And most civilizations use it because we have ten fingers.…show more content…
If you have 12, for example, how’d you put it into base 2? In base 10, we have places for each digit. The ones place is for 100, or one, the tens place is for 101, or ten, the hundreds place is for 102, or 100, and so on. In base 2, it’s the same. The ones place is 20, or 1, then there’s 21, or 2, then 22, or 4, and so on. The only digits in base 2 are zero and one. Therefore, when you need two, no unique number means 2. Because of that, base 2 uses 10 instead. 10 means one 21 and no 20, becoming 102. The 2 subscript means it’s in base 2. Essentially, it’s the same thing, but using 2 as the base instead of 10. That’s why it’s called ‘base’ 2 or ‘base’ 10 – in xy, x is the base and y is the
Open Document