Have you ever wondered how your device is able to play your favorite movie or song over the internet? It all has to do with binary code. Computers use binary code to store and transmit data because it is a reliable system. Binary code is made up of only two digits, 1 and 0, and is stored in the computer’s main memory using transistors that switch between high and low voltage levels.
The beauty of binary code is that each type of data is encoded according to a separate set of rules. For example, numbers in decimal notation are multiplied by 10 raised to the value of its position, whereas in binary notation, each position is based on 2 raised to some power. Letters, on the other hand, are interpreted based on standard rules like UTF-8, which assigns each character to a specific group of 8-digit binary strings.
Binary code is also used for more complex types of data, such as video and audio. Each frame of a video is made up of hundreds of thousands of pixels, and every pixel in a color image is represented by three binary sequences that correspond to the primary colors. The sound in a video is also stored in binary, with the help of a technique called pulse code modulation that digitizes continuous sound waves.
All of this requires billions and billions of bits, but clever compression formats like run-length encoding can reduce the amount of data needed. These compressed formats are also written in binary code.
While there have been attempts to develop ternary and quantum computers, none have provided the same level of physical stability for data storage and transmission as binary code. For now, everything we see, hear, and read through our screens comes to us as a result of a simple “true” or “false” choice, made billions of times over.