Name: How exactly does binary code work? - José Américo N L F de Freitas
Uploaded: 2020-03-20T04:30:16.000Z
Duration: 4 min 40 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Imagine trying to use words  to describe every scene in a film,

Now imagine trying to do it using  only the numbers 1 and 0.

Every time you use the Internet to watch a movie,

that’s exactly what your device is doing,

Computers use binary because  it's a reliable way of storing data.

For example, a computer's main memory is made of transistors

that switch between either high  or low voltage levels,

Voltages sometimes oscillate, but since there are only two options,

a value of 1 volt  would still be read as "low."

That reading is done by  the computer’s processor,

which uses the transistors’ states  to control other computer devices

The genius of this system  is that a given binary sequence

doesn't have a pre-determined meaning  on its own.

Instead, each type of data is encoded in binary

each digit is multiplied by 10 raised  to the value of its position,

So 84 in decimal form is 4x10⁰ + 8x10¹.

but with each position  based on 2 raised to some power.

Meanwhile, letters are interpreted  based on standard rules like UTF-8,

which assigns each character to a specific group of 8-digit binary strings.

In this case, 01010100 corresponds  to the letter T.

So, how can you know whether  a given instance of this sequence

Well, you can’t from seeing  the string alone

– just as you can’t tell what the sound "da" means from hearing it in isolation.

You need context to tell whether you're hearing Russian, Spanish, or English.

to tell whether you’re looking  at binary numbers or binary text.

Binary code is also used for  far more complex types of data.

is made of hundreds  of thousands of pixels.

every pixel is represented  by three binary sequences

that determines the intensity of that particular color.

Then, a video driver program transmits  this information

to the millions of liquid crystals  in your screen

to make all the different hues  you see now.

The sound in this video  is also stored in binary,

with the help of a technique  called pulse code modulation.

by taking "snapshots" of their  amplitudes every few milliseconds.

These are recorded as numbers  in the form of binary strings,

with as many as 44,000 for every second of sound.

When they’re read by  your computer’s audio software,

the numbers determine how quickly  the coils in your speakers should vibrate

to create sounds of different frequencies.

All of this requires billions  and billions of bits.

But that amount can be reduced  through clever compression formats.

For example, if a picture has 30 adjacent  pixels of green space,

they can be recorded as "30 green" instead of coding each pixel separately -

These compressed formats are themselves  written in binary code.

So is binary the end-all-be-all  of computing?

There’s been research  into ternary computers,

whose circuits can be in multiple states simultaneously.

as much physical stability  for data storage and transmission.

comes to you as the result  of a simple "true" or "false" choice,