[Andora]

I was just thinking, binary is a really elegant way to compute (so much easier than decimal once you get the hang of it), but I can't help but wonder if it is really the best way to go about it. Is there a way, given new technology, that we could step up to a 4 or even 16 base and hugely increase the speed of our computers, or even just the internet?

-discuss (or call me an idiot, either way I hope to learn something )

[BetaWar]

I believe the reason for binary is so hyou can have on or off in a computer, + or -. Hard drives store data based on magnetism, where a positive (+) charge is a 1 and negative (-) is a 0, and since magnets can't really have more than 2 sides it makes sense to use binary. If they found a totally different way to save data using hext etc. would be more of an option.

[Martyr2]

Betawar is exactly right. The reason computers have binary is because of the switch. An on or off state. Also magnetism for storage having positive and negative, pits on a cd being reflective or not reflective.

However, this isn't saying that they aren't trying other formats. I sat in a lecture on quantum processing which is pioneering a new technology where switches will be able to hold multiple states (on, off, both on and off etc) at the same time. It gives the computer processors the ability to parallel process because of quantum mechanics... we are talking "true" parallel processing here. Not time sharing or multitasking. They already use it for advanced cryptography.

But it is possible and if you want to learn more, look up quantum processors and you can find articles on it.

This post has been edited by Martyr2: 03 November 2008 - 09:47 PM

[salindor]

There are some nifty tricks that can be played because numbers are binary and processors use this.

From a number theory point of view, binary is not capable of representing as many numbers as say decimal (I can't remember a good example anymore, I know it is bad to make a statement and not back it). Trinary has some interesting properties; and would proably be able to represent numbers that Binary (and Decimal for that matter) can't; but I would imagine it would have other numbers which couldn't be represented by either decimal or binary.

From a number theory point of view; a quadary, octary, and hextary system should all be equivelent in the representable numbers and shouldn't gain any advantages. However, I not seen a proof for this, so I could be wrong.

[dbasnett]

here is how it happened

First Binary

here is the link to the actual thesis

Thesis