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Digital Literacy Computer Basics Computer Basics Binary

Vic Mercier
Vic Mercier
3,276 Points
Posted by Vic Mercier
Vic Mercier
3,276 Points

Is 4,321 equal to 4 thousands 3 hundreds and twenty-one?

I am a frenchman and I haven't been used to that system.

2 Answers

Steve Hunter
Steve Hunter
57,712 Points

Hi Vic,

In base 10, decimal, that's exactly what that figure means. The least significant digit, the rightmost one in 4,321 hold the number of units. In base 10 that can be zero to 9. Next, the number of the next column - in base 10, that 10's, hence the figure ten is one ten and zero units. 11 is one ten and one unit.

Next is hundred, then thousands etc.

In other bases, 4,321 means something different but the concept remains the same. If we're in base 5, there's one unit, 2 fives, three 25s and four 125s and so on.

But that muddies the waters a little! We tend to use decimal (base 10) in everyday life and for some computer stuff we think in binary. For some things, such as colours we may use hexadecimal (base 16) - in memory allocation too, these larger bases hold more relevance (e.g. 32-bit, 64-bit).

I hope that helped; I suspect it didn't!

Steve.

Jesus Pagtakhan
Jesus Pagtakhan
499 Points
Jesus Pagtakhan
Jesus Pagtakhan
499 Points

yes, if you break it down to place values... ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten thousands, etc...

4, 321 = 4, 000 + 300 + 21 = 4 thousands + 3 hundreds + 21

you can also completely break it down further...

4, 321 = 4, 000 + 300 + 20 + 1 = 4 thousands + 3 hundreds + 2 tens + 1 ones

iamserda
iamserda
2,672 Points

4, 321 = 4, 000 + 300 + 20 + 1 = 4 thousands + 3 hundreds + 2 tens + 1 ones is the only correct one here. There is no 21 ones. anything above ten is group as a ten. 10 tens becomes 1 hundred, 10 hundreds becomes 1 thousand, 10 thousands become 1 million etc... , en arithmetique, on dit dizaine, centaine, millier, etc...