What is base ten math?

Answer 1

In mathematics the word 'base' refers to the number of digits used in a particular system of counting.

The binary system is base 2. i.e it uses 2 digits - 0 and 1... and is at the background off all computer mathematics.

Counting in binary starts at 0, with 0 = 0, and goes on to

# 1 # 10 ---- at this point digits start to be repeated

# 11 # 100 # 101 # 110 # 111 # 1000 # 1001 # 1010 # 1011 # 1100 # 1101 # 1110 # 1111 # 10000 # 10001 # 10010 # 10011 # 10100

The decimal system is base 10. i.e it uses 10 digits 0,1,2....9, and is used in general life in most western countries. It too starts with 0 = 0 and goes on to....

# 1 # 2 # 3 # 4 # 5 # 6 # 7 # 8 # 9 # 10 ---- at this point digits start to be repeated # 11 # 12 # 13 # 14 # 15 # 16 # 17 # 18 # 19 # 20 There is also another system - the hexadecimal system, which uses base 16, and it starts off like the decimal system 0,1,2...9 but then needs to have 'new' digits and uses the first six letters of the alphabet. It too starts with 0 = 0

# 1 # 2 # 3 # 4 # 5 # 6 # 7 # 8 # 9 # a # b # c # d # e # f # 10 ---- at this point digits start to be repeated # 11 # 12 # 13 # 14 # 15 Hexadecimal is widely used in the computer industry as it can represent a range of numbers from 0 to 255 with just two digits. That equates to 256 numbers, and 256 is a direct multiple of 8 - which is a number much used in computer memory - as in a byte, which is 8 bits... or 8 binary digits.