Gain insights into essential number systems for computer scientists. Explore binary representation, and learn to represent and manipulate positive, negative, and fractional numbers stored in computers.

Get introduced to the number systems that are essential for computer scientists, and take a deep dive into binary representation. Learn how to represent and manipulate, positive, negative, and fractional numbers in binary, and learn how numbers are stored and represented in computers.

The only background this course requires is grade-school arithmetic. No programming knowledge is needed.

Number Systems For Computer Scientists

# What is a bit?
We have referred to each digit of a binary number as a bit, and classified the numbers as $4$-bit, $8$-bit and so on.

But a bit is also the most basic unit of storage in a computer. As we saw, a bit can only hold a value of $1$ or $0$, and thus in almost all cases we would need groups of bits to represent any useful information.


Learn about the basics of computer storage, from bits to bytes and beyond.

Introduction

Essential Number Systems

Some Binary Operations

Signed Binary Numbers

Representing Numbers With Fractional Parts

Representation in a Computer

Conclusion

Bits and Bytes

What is a bit?