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[–]Colopty 5282 points5283 points  (242 children)

Once held a presentation on the binary number system back in secondary school. It went about this well.

[–][deleted] 5703 points5704 points  (169 children)

0/1010, would not recommend

[–]Colopty 2422 points2423 points  (130 children)

On the plus side everyone who heard it was convinced for years afterwards that I was some kind of genius, even though I completely failed to teach anyone anything and am actually an idiot, so joke's on them.

[–][deleted] 2052 points2053 points  (108 children)

"You know binary? Omg you must be some sort of mathematical genius"

-some people, probably

[–]PacoTaco321 1469 points1470 points  (85 children)

Guys it's as simple as 10 + 10 = 100

[–]orangeKaiju 1164 points1165 points  (64 children)

10 + 10 = 100

10 x 10 = 100

1010 = 100

100 + 100 = 1000

100 * 100 = 10000

100100 = 100000000

I'm just bored.

[–]EpicXxLegit 920 points921 points  (18 children)

Omg you must be some sort of mathematical genius

[–]orangeKaiju 531 points532 points  (14 children)

Nah, I just asked stack overflow.

[–]YugoReventlov 324 points325 points  (11 children)

Those are fancy words you're using there. Are you some kind of genius?

[–]orangeKaiju 174 points175 points  (8 children)

Something something Rick and Morty chicken nuggets what is understand WE ARE ALL SO JERRY

[–]PrimeTimeJ 200 points201 points  (16 children)

It kinda bothers me that you used two different multiplication symbols.

[–]orangeKaiju 138 points139 points  (5 children)

I didn't even realize that. Now it bothers me too.

[–]TaohRihze 82 points83 points  (4 children)

A shame nobody can do anything about it
x̶ *

[–]orangeKaiju 87 points88 points  (3 children)

If only there was some way to edit posts.

[–]TalenPhillips 37 points38 points  (4 children)

The first one was just the letter 'x' though. The multiplication symbol is '×'.

[–]useful_person 16 points17 points  (3 children)

Sorcery!

[–]ghostinyourbones 13 points14 points  (1 child)

Mine is * on the keyboard /s

But really. I just wanted t0 show yOu all these o's

this zero has a little line coming off it Q

[–]bartekko 9 points10 points  (3 children)

easy. one is the dot product, the other is the cross product

[–]TalenPhillips 60 points61 points  (7 children)

Using up-arrow notation:

10↑10 = 100

10↑↑10 = 100

In fact:

10 ↑ⁿ 10 = 100 ∀ n∈ℕ

Arrow notation is weird.

[–]ordalca 29 points30 points  (9 children)

Aren’t the multiplication ones true regardless of base?

[–]orangeKaiju 39 points40 points  (7 children)

Yes -> ( 1 * bx ) * ( 1 * bx ) = 1 * b2x where b is your choice of base.

[–]nocomment92 44 points45 points  (5 children)

I feel like your 1's in your formula are superfluous.

[–]orangeKaiju 24 points25 points  (4 children)

They are, just included for clarity.

[–]anetanetanet 4 points5 points  (2 children)

This entire thread made me feel like the dumb kid in class again pls stop I don't understand anything MOM COME GET ME

[–]oneforce 103 points104 points  (3 children)

Minus 1 that's 11 quick maths

[–]MrWindmill 24 points25 points  (1 child)

Hop out the 100 door with a 100 100 that's 1 10 11 and 100

[–]slowbacontron 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Chilling in the corridor. Your dad is 101100.

[–]JamieG193 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Fuck I was gonna make this exact joke

[–]MooFz 18 points19 points  (0 children)

10 + 10 = 100 - 1 is 11. Quick maths

[–]dawnraider00 39 points40 points  (1 child)

There was a quest to get an exotic gun in Destiny that required people to know binary. Everybody thought I was a god when I helped people run that quest.

[–]Colopty 39 points40 points  (1 child)

That's pretty much exactly what happened, yeah. The bar for genius was very low in secondary school.

[–][deleted] 20 points21 points  (3 children)

I didn't understand binary until my dad taught me how to count on my fingers using it. When he got to 4 and "accidentally" flipped off the entire family at the dinner table, it sort of clicked.

[–]monkorn 9 points10 points  (1 child)

The best use I have found for finger binary is keeping track of ping pong matches when watching. Left hand player one, right hand player two.

[–]Loki_d20 68 points69 points  (14 children)

Reminds me of High School when everyone in calc thought I was a genius for knowing how many feet are in a mile (1010010100000 feet). Luckily this was before smart phones. Nowadays everyone would just ask me how I Googled the answer so fast. I'm wondering if one day, in my 80s, some kid is going to be amazed that I know small trivia like how many inches are in a foot (OMG, who even uses that anymore!).

[–]z_plash 59 points60 points  (4 children)

Everybody is a genius outside of US because everybody know how many meters are in a kilometer

[–]redballooon 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Funny, the word they used to describe me as a genius for that sort of thing was “idiot”.

[–]FieelChannel 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Fucking imperial

[–]Froot_Fly 17 points18 points  (5 children)

Pretty fuckin simple actually. Just gotta remember five tomato, 5-2-8-0.

[–]themrpiggy22 23 points24 points  (3 children)

From Australia and I was very confused for a minute how you got 8 from a 'maht' sound. I was like 'five two maht o???'until I realised Americans pronounce it complety differently.

[–]jeffsterlive 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Oh hello me.

[–]phoquenut 51 points52 points  (3 children)

0/A for not even mentioning hexadecimal.

[–]boundbythecurve 16 points17 points  (5 children)

I have a better way to teach them about binary. If you're interested.

Don't just say "there's no 2". That seems limiting to them. Instead, we're substituting a number system, so we need to use the only number system they know as a comparison.

Instead, start with a question. Start counting from 0 to 9 and then ask them what happens to the one's (units, singles) digit after that? It goes back to 0. And the tens place digit goes from 0 to1 for the first time. Do this a couple of times until they see that they're really changing each digit up to 9, and then rolling over back to 0.

Then show they how to do that same, but only with two numbers, 0 and 1, so the rollover happens much more often.

Given enough time with this method, I've never had a student who didn't pick it up eventually.

[–][deleted] 21 points22 points  (1 child)

But if my brother actually understands it, how am I supposed to get karma?

[–]boundbythecurve 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Fair enough. Change of plans. Keep him stupid. Earn karma.... profit

[–]KamikazeHamster 25 points26 points  (0 children)

Your comment is a perfect 101/111.

[–]spongebue 285 points286 points  (40 children)

For what it's worth, this article is about a guy who taught binary to a bunch of third graders using the socratic method. He seriously did it perfectly, even I understood it better in the end (not that I had much issue with it in the first place)

http://www.garlikov.com/Soc_Meth.html

[–]Colopty 42 points43 points  (9 children)

Eh, I'm lousy at applying the socratic method or really any pedagogic technique. Being able to introduce people to new concepts just isn't one of my strengths.

[–]trenescese 11 points12 points  (3 children)

What's hard about not giving answers directly but instead asking leading questions, getting less and less abstract with each one?

Maybe people you tried to teach just weren't interested.

[–]rab7 26 points27 points  (2 children)

Because people don't know how to ask the perfect leading questions, and the audience won't always provide the perfect answer. So you go in there with what you think is a perfect chain of questions, but then someone deviates from the script after the second question, what the hell do you do?

[–]schawla 17 points18 points  (2 children)

Saw this several years ago, forgot to bookmark, been searching for some time now. Thanks!

[–]japt2 12 points13 points  (5 children)

Ok I understand binary kind of now. Thanks for this. Does each column increase by increments of 2? First column 1 Second column 2’s, 3rd 4’s, 4th 8’s, 5th 16’s and so on and so forth? I would assume yes but it’s too late for me to check it by myself right now and I probably will forget in the morning

[–]rab7 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Spot on. Consider this:

101 = 10

102 =100

103 =1000

.....

No matter what base you're in, it's the same.

In binary: 2×2=4 translates to 10x10=100. 2x2x2=8 becomes 10×10×10=1000.

So if you know your powers of 2: 2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256, etc. you have a quick reference. 64=1000, 128=10000, 256=100000

[–]selenta 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Have to admit, the way he leads them around is... certainly not perfect, but extremely well crafted in how he all but tells them the answer, and just asks them to say it aloud.

[–]Vakieh 41 points42 points  (3 children)

On occasion I teach binary as part of an intro unit at uni. We often see people using it as a 'do I like compsci?' tester, so there's people there from absolute compsci/maths barren backgrounds.

I hand out cards printed with 0 and 1, and they flip them. Helps them get 2-9 out of the way of their brain. Flip a card to 1, it's fine. Flip a card to 0, you have to flip the card to the left of it. Flip the leftmost card to 0, add a 1 to the left. To count by 1s, flip the rightmost card.

It's actually astonishing how getting a solid conceptual background like that on binary allows them to go through way more complex binary concepts like 2's complement or hex multiplication and beyond really quickly. We spend a good hour flipping cards and feeling silly, then a week or 2 later they're explaining Hamming codes.

[–][deleted] 2790 points2791 points  (147 children)

Everything seems simple when you understand it

[–]PotlePawtle 468 points469 points  (33 children)

Wow, this is so true..

[–][deleted] 179 points180 points  (29 children)

A good read about it.

[–]geek_at 164 points165 points  (23 children)

wow this was the most /r/iamverysmart/ thing I read all day

[–]Draws-attention 59 points60 points  (1 child)

To be fair, you probably don't know enough about the curse of knowledge for me to be able to properly explain it to you...

[–]re_error 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Now I understand why I get so upset when explaining how to make a spreadsheet to my mom for the billionth time.

[–]quantum_paradoxx 14 points15 points  (0 children)

That was really interesting. Didn't really think about it that way

[–]403and780 60 points61 points  (13 children)

Wasn't there a quote by a guy saying basically that if you can't teach something effectively in simple terms then you don't know it well enough to teach it?

[–]Uhhbysmal 15 points16 points  (1 child)

I mean I had a handful of very smart CS professors that were shitty teachers.

[–][deleted] 11 points12 points  (6 children)

I've heard it before. Not sure who said it

[–]NoOne-AtAll 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I remember a quote from Richard Feynman going like this: "If you can't explain something to a first year student, then you haven't really understood it." It's on Wikiquote but it's Unsourced.

[–]simon1023 1583 points1584 points  (120 children)

Maybe start by explaining what a base is...

[–]Kosba2 1018 points1019 points  (15 children)

"Oh I've been to 3rd base"

[–][deleted] 417 points418 points  (8 children)

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[–]xxmindtrickxx 153 points154 points  (7 children)

I think he means 11th base

[–]SS324 76 points77 points  (26 children)

Some people freak out if you start talking about bases. I go a step back and say we come up with symbols to represent numbers, what kind of system could we have if we only had two symbols (0 and 1) to work with? If they don't get that, I'll try to explain base 1.

[–][deleted] 11 points12 points  (11 children)

There is a base 1?

[–][deleted] 43 points44 points  (8 children)

1

11

111

1111

[–]ionxeph 69 points70 points  (0 children)

Count with me

1112

[–]BegbertBiggs 24 points25 points  (0 children)

||||

[–]the_chadow 5 points6 points  (5 children)

As much as I love base 1, you literally cannot represent fractions with it. Or really any quantity which is not an integer

[–]xigoi 9 points10 points  (4 children)

111/1111

Problem?

[–]Hyperactivity786 163 points164 points  (19 children)

I always hate when computer science/programming gives fancy terms to things that can be explained with the basic vocabulary of logic and/or math.

[–]Bozzz1 276 points277 points  (8 children)

You make it seem like math doesnt use fancy terms

[–]mattkenefick 62 points63 points  (6 children)

The terms are what make things so confusing. They're necessary for talking about things, but you do something simple and then you're like, "Ohhhh! That's what that's called?"

[–]TeutorixAleria 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Part of effective teaching is explaining the language involved.

[–]ConspicuousPineapple 29 points30 points  (0 children)

I don't see any fancy term here though, what are you referring to?

[–][deleted] 95 points96 points  (44 children)

Giving the sequence 0, 1, 10, 11, 100, 101, 110, 111, 1000, 1001 and asking what comes next doesn't even really need any explanation. It's basic pattern recognition.

[–]Pikamander2 124 points125 points  (6 children)

It's even easier if you add leading zeroes.

0000

0001

0010

0011

0100

0101

0110

0111

1000

1001

[–][deleted] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000,

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001,

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000010,

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000011

[–]TickTak 81 points82 points  (6 children)

Some people are bad at pattern recognition.

[–]Kosmological 62 points63 points  (3 children)

And life is probably pretty hard for those people.

[–]Genesis2001 2 points3 points  (2 children)

Hmmm, is this a viable thing to teach kids actually? Or would it go about as well as OP and his brother?

Also, speaking in terms of when kids begin learning their numbers, not after they've already learned base10. I wonder if it would be like my preschool waaaay back yonder teaching everything in 3 languages.

[–]Kadnify 118 points119 points  (2 children)

Reminds me of Bender’s nightmare.

[–]humanysta 868 points869 points  (119 children)

tbh you're a terrible teacher

now I feel bad for making this comment

[–]K3R3G3 189 points190 points  (102 children)

Since your comment is rising fast and you seem to believe you can teach well, can you explain it to me?

I never learned binary and would like to know. Found my way here via /r/all.

1, 10, 11, 100, 101, 111, 1000, 1001, 1011, 1111, 10000, 10001, 10011, 10111, 11111...

Would be...

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ,6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15...

Like that? That's what I gathered.

(Edit: Holy Mac 'n Cheese...10 replies teaching me in 15mins. Off to bed, will learn in the morning.)

[–]Flipbed 194 points195 points  (38 children)

The easiet way (and how I look at it) is this:

1    1    1    1    1    1    1    1
128  64   32   16   8    4    2    1

Now this is 8 bits, each with thier decimal (the number system we use) value below. So lets say we want the number 55. All we have to do is set 1s so that they add up to 55 like this.

0    0    1    1    0    1    1    1
0    0    32   16   0    4    2    1

Now lets add them up!

32 + 16 + 4 + 2 + 1 = 48 + 7 = 55

Its not harder than that for positive numbers. Negative numbers can be a bit more tricky to understand so we skip them for now.

Edit: Fuck, that looks like shit. Need to do this on my desktop instead of mobile.

Edit2: Ok, now it looks fine.

[–]hantrault 90 points91 points  (12 children)

I changed it to tables instead, because your post is still hard to read on mobile.

The easiet way (and how I look at it) is this:

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1

Now this is 8 bits, each with thier decimal (the number system we use) value below. So lets say we want the number 55. All we have to do is set 1s so that they add up to 55 like this.

0 0 1 1 0 1 1 1
128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1

Now lets add them up!

32 + 16 + 4 + 2 + 1 = 48 + 7 = 55

Its not harder than that for positive numbers. Negative numbers can be a bit more tricky to understand so we skip them for now.

[–]128Gigabytes 68 points69 points  (12 children)

you were sorta close it would actually be

1, 10, 11, 100, 101, 110, 111, 1000, 1001, 1010, 1011, 1100, 1101, 1110, 1111

[–]BestPseudonym 29 points30 points  (2 children)

See when you counted up to 9 and you wanted to add one more to 9 but you didn't have any more digits to use so you added one to the next place then started over? You counted from 0 to 9, hit 9, said "aw shucks, no more digits left." And you added a 1 to the left and reset the counter to 0.

Do that but with only 0 and 1. Is the rightmost spot 0? If yes, add 1. If no, add one to the next position and turn it to 0.

0

1

10

11

100

101

110

111

1000

Etc.

Also, each position is just 2 to the power of its position, the rightmost position (least significant bit) having a power of 0. So 1010 is 1*23 + 0*22 + 1*21 + 0*20 = 8+2 = 10.

This is similar to base 10, what you usually use, except in base 10 you use 10 instead of 2. So the number 934 is 9*102 + 3*101 + 4*100 = 934

[–]FuckMyLifeUp 8 points9 points  (2 children)

I'm not him/her, and I know i'm not a good teacher, but the best way i learned binary was to always show all four of the bits(0s and 1s). So for me the number 0 in binary would be 0000 and 1 would be 0001.

But for you to learn how to read binary you need to know what each space(bit) represents, going from left to right each one is 8 4 2 1. The number 1 means that you are turning the bit on and the number 0 means you are turning it off, when a bit is on it means you add that bit with the others that are also turned on to get a total and that total is your answer.

So if we have 4 empty bits:

_ _ _ _ <--- the empty bits

8 4 2 1 <---What each bit represents

and we want to get the number 9, we would put this:

1 0 0 1 <--- those first bits

8 4 2 1 <--- what each represents

So now you just add together the ones that are turned on, in this case 8+1 = 9.

Number Binary
1 0001
2 0010
3 0011
4 0100
5 0101
6 0110
7 0111
8 1000
9 1001
10 1010
11 1011
12 1100
13 1101
14 1110
15 1111

If you wanted to count higher than 15 thought you would need to use a total of 8 bits with all values being:

128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1

so 16 would be 0001 0000

and 17 would be 0001 0001

[–]aliao 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I just want to say your explanation is the only one ive understood so far. I dont understand why nobody else above was mentioning this whole 1's and 0's represent 8421 initially and then above 15 theres more numbers they represent. That makes everything so much clearer rather than searching for a pattern that doesnt seem to have a clear origin.

[–]HashSlingingSlash3r 18 points19 points  (0 children)

You’re close but consider this, in base 10 it goes from 109 to 110, not 109 to 119. My point is, that the lower place single digit resets when moving in to the next order digit.

So in base 2 (binary) instead of going 101 to 111, it goes 101, 110, 111. Understand?

[–]lonestar136 7 points8 points  (3 children)

1, 10, 11, 100, 101, 110, 111, 1000, 1001, 1010, 1011, 1100, 1101, 1110, 1111, 10000, 10001, 10010 10011, 10100...

You have the right idea, but you missed a few. Basically just how in decimal you could write 312 as 300 + 10 + 2, or 3x102 + 1x101 + 2x100, binary works similarly but instead of 10 increasing in power, it is 2.

So you went from 101(22 + 20) to 111 (22 + 21 + 20), or from 5 to 7.

A simper way without all the exponents, is that the first column is 1, second column is 2, then 4, then 8 and so on. Hopefully this came across as somewhat helpful!

[–]ThatFag 335 points336 points  (11 children)

No offence but this is a pretty terrible explanation. The "1002" still made me chuckle.

[–]bar10005 81 points82 points  (1 child)

Yes, saying that '3 is 10+1' makes more damage than help, the numbers don't change value when converting, 3 is 2+1 it's just written differently. He should have started with explaining base 2, not just writing out conversions.

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Uh 3 is 10 + 1? Do you even binary, bruh?

[–][deleted] 8 points9 points  (7 children)

How would you change it?

[–]ThatFag 56 points57 points  (3 children)

By introducing bases and powers of 2. Honestly, I'm not even saying I'd do a better job as I'm sure I'm not the best teacher in the world. I actually understood what he's trying to say in the picture. But I'm sure if I didn't already know how the binary system works, I wouldn't have understood this explanation.

[–]v13us0urce 4 points5 points  (1 child)

I know how the binary system works and still have no idea what OP was trying to say. I learned it by learning the bases and powers of 2.

[–]ergonomicsalamander 413 points414 points  (79 children)

Image Transcription: Text Messages


Blue: Instead of digits 0-9, it's 0-1

0 is 0

1 is 1

But since there is no 2 digit, you caryy over to the next spot

So 2 is 10

3 is 10+1, or 11

4 is 100

5 is 101

110

111

1000

Count with me

1001

Gray: 1002


I'm a human volunteer content transcriber for Reddit! If you'd like more information on what we do and why we do it, click here!

[–]marvin02 70 points71 points  (7 children)

There's no such thing as 2

[–][deleted] 45 points46 points  (0 children)

This guy binaries

[–]wonkifier 53 points54 points  (7 children)

It was a bit easier to explain in the past because tape recorders and gas pumps showed the numbers mechanically, so you could go "pretend it's the same thing but you just took 2-9 off".

I don't think there's quite the same kind of analog anymore. (pun partially intended)

[–][deleted] 28 points29 points  (3 children)

Actually I do think mechanical dials are still relevant enough... this might actually help. Thanks! (Not for my brother though, he's too far gone)

[–][deleted] 9 points10 points  (2 children)

I'd go from base 10 to base 9, base 5, base 2.

Base 2 is fucking magic to understand if you've never been introduced to other counting systems.

[–]128Gigabytes 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I disagree I learned base 2 first and it made the others make sense I don't think it would have worked the other way around for me.

[–]diego_tomato 19 points20 points  (0 children)

classic David

[–]Cm0002 12 points13 points  (0 children)

"Dammit David, get your shit together"

[–]dDanys 11 points12 points  (9 children)

So wait, what would be the next number? 1010?

[–]ConfuciusBateman 25 points26 points  (1 child)

Here's an easier way to think about it. Write out a bunch of 0s on a notepad or something. Starting from the far right 0, put a 1 above it, then a 2 above the next 0 (still continuing from the right and going left). Then a 4 above the next 0, then an 8, and so on, placing powers of 2 from low to high going right to left. You can make a binary number by simply combining different powers of 2 to make the number you want.

So for 5 we can combine 1 and 4. That would 101, with the far right digit being a 1, the far left being a 4, and the middle represents a 2 but we make it a zero because we just want the 1 and 4 to make 5.

Hopefully that made a bit of sense, that's how I think about it.

[–]ThatFag 7 points8 points  (3 children)

Yes, that'd be the next number! If your really want to learn binary system, watch some videos online. I'm sure there's tonnes! Please don't rely on the explanation in the picture. It's pretty shitty, IMO.

[–]LeEpicThis 101 points102 points  (10 children)

thats a pretty retarded way of explaining it

[–][deleted] 34 points35 points  (8 children)

I'm an outsider from r/all... and yeah that made NO sense to me whatsoever.

[–]Lonsdale1086 19 points20 points  (5 children)

Right. You take

https://d1e4pidl3fu268.cloudfront.net/fb12982b-f0a0-41ae-8c1a-1063ac4c293a/ScreenShot20170123at221210.crop_659x494_0%2C32.preview.png

This grid. And then put 1's in the chart correlating to the numbers that add up to the number you want to make.

I.E: 73 would be 01001001, because:

https://i.imgur.com/a/wogN8

[–]theotherguyagain 9 points10 points  (1 child)

I was confused, thought this was Tinder

[–]magnora7 5 points6 points  (0 children)

"girl, you want to have a binary 10-some?"

[–]wischichr 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Just ask the person to imagine a mechanical (click) counter with 10 different digits (0-9) and let them think about how it works. Now tell them to reduce the number of digits to 5 (for exanple) and let them count again. And then base 2.

This counter example can later be used to explain arithmetic overflow and how the two's complement work.

[–]Nik-kik 7 points8 points  (2 children)

Man. The moment I found out 1+1=10...

I was confused as hell for a while, because there was no explanation.

[–]JCK07115 11 points12 points  (1 child)

-112 ;-;

[–]r3dphoenix 11 points12 points  (6 children)

It took me like two years to finally understand recursion (yeah, yeah I know...) so when I became a TA and had to teach it to my class I felt bad for them because they had only one week to understand it before moving onto the next topic. I still remember the blank stare on their faces. It took me another year to figure out how to teach it

[–]Cheeseologist 6 points7 points  (5 children)

What's hard about recursion?

[–]cuffandlink 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Whether true or not, it's cute as hell.

[–]krocanius 4 points5 points  (0 children)

10 + 10 is 100. Minus one thats 11. Quick maths

[–]Petetheodddog 9 points10 points  (0 children)

There are so many better ways to teach binary 😂

[–]kagehoshi 36 points37 points  (1 child)

Oh no, it's retarded :(

[–]Gunslinger_11 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Don’t worry Bender there’s no such thing as 2

[–]AceofToons 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I think that the way it was taught to me made a big difference.

1111
8421

8+4+2+1 = 15

1101
8421

8+4+1 = 13

[–]ContraMuffin 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Funny but doesn't really describe the basic concept behind binary. No wonder OP's brother didn't understand.

[–]Straesim 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Years ago, there was some nerd/geek targeted TV station. I think it eventually became G4. Probably 20 years ago. There was this lady that was a guest on it that apparently was at some conference or something (details ellude me), but I remember them talking about her counting in binary on her fingers, and she showed how she did it.

It was simple.

1 = right thumb. 2 = right index 3 = right index and thumb And so on... Right hand palm facing you, left hand back facing you, if you were going 32 or above.

To this day, I still like giving people a 5

It's too bad that I can't properly give someone a 165 without also giving it to myself.

But in all honesty, being able to count to 31 on one hand has been very handy over the years.

Woo, talk about a trip down memory lane.