This Number System Beats Binary, But Most Computers Can’t Use It Why do computers only work with the numbers 0 and 1? There are machines that process three digits with more efficiency than you ...

Mangareva Island Wikimedia Commons Binary, or base two, is the number system that computer systems use, as opposed to the decimal, or base ten, system used in our day-to-day lives.

What is binary? Binary is a number system that only uses two digits: 1 and 0. All information that is processed by a computer is in the form of a sequence of 1s and 0s.

The use of binary numbers date back to ancient Egypt, but it was 17th-century philosopher and mathematician, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who created the current binary number system used today.

This Number System Beats Binary, But Most Computers Can’t Use It Why do computers only work with the numbers 0 and 1?