Why computers use "0" and "1"?!?

Question

in computers we defined a special voltage as "1", and a special voltage as "0" ... why we use 0 and 1 in computers ?! why we don`t define some other voltages as other numbers and use them in computers?!--- excuse me if my question had grammatical problems!---

Answer 1

It all has to do with the ease of building a transistor.

A transistor is an electronic device that takes an input from on side and flips a switch from on to off. This is like standing at a light switch and when someone touches you, you flip the switch. On or off. When programming it is much easier to us "I" and "O" instead of on and off. You then count with 1s and 0s. You put switches in an array. You need four switches to count to 16 and eight switches to count to 64. We now have 32 and 64 bit computers that can count higher.

You can actually put billions of these transistors on a single wafer using silicon as barrier to stop the flow of energy out of the switch. It is a great way to compute.

Hey, here is a cool fact. Our brain is much more confusing. 1 neuron can pass on one signal to another neuron. BUT, a single neuron usually has many different input to tell it whether or not to switch. Basically like a transistor but with twenty different people trying to flip a switch. Maybe that is why it gets so confused up there.

Answer 2

You don't like zero and 1? Make it yes and no then. bottom line, at it's simplest level a computer uses binary logic. Based on 2 states. Off or on, zero or one. Voltage present or no voltage Positive voltage, or negative voltage.

Fundamental Operations
Binary Every expression can only evaluate to 0 or 1, there are no other possibilities.

NOT For any A, not(A) has the value 1 if A=0, and 0 if A=1. not(A) is called the complement of A.

OR Given two inputs A, B the expression A+B represents "A OR B" and evaluates to 1 if at least one of A or B is 1, otherwise it is 0.

AND Given two inputs A, B the expression A.B represents "A AND B" and evaluates to 1 if both A and B are 1, otherwise it is 0.

NOR Given two inputs A, B the expression not(A+B) (not-or) is the complement of A+B.

NAND Given two inputs A, B the expression not(A.B) (not-and) is the complement of A.B.

EOR Given two inputs A, B the expression A^B is the exclusive-or of A, B and has the value 1 if one and only one of A or B are 1 (but not both).

Just look up binary logic in a good search engine.

Answer 3

Computers use the binary system (only 0 and 1) for simplicity and efficiency. With only 0 and 1, things are represented by either voltage or no voltage, magnetized or not, optical pit or not etc...

If there were more than just on or off, then you'd have problems with noise. What if a less then perfect connector caused a voltage representing 2 to be more like a voltage representing 1.5, what would the computer do?

It also makes things simplier to make

Answer 4

Because computers are digital. They are switches really either on or off. 1 or 0 are the only states they can be in. The high voltage is a 1, and the low voltage is a 0 zero.

good luck.

Answer 5

0 and 1 come from the science of information theory, which gets them from statistics. A probability of 0 in statistics means 0%, and a probability of 1 means 100%. In information terms, "1" and "0" are just ways of saying "true" and "false" or "on" and "off". In the electrical circuits of a computer, 0 means off and 1 means on. In the science of information, 0 means false and 1 means true. When you ask a computer to perform an operation, you're basically asking it a long series of true/false questions, which it resolves through its logic gates, and it gives you an answer that is another long series of trues and falses. Any peice of information can be phrased as string of these trues and falses, 1's and 0's, on's and off's. Each one of these is known as a bit. A bit, the fundamental unit of information, can be either 1 or 0. The fact that there are two possible states gives it the name "binary code" where "bi" refers to two. It's also said that computers use "base two" which means that they represent numbers as strings of one's and zeros.
The special voltage you're calling "one" just refers to the voltage necessary for the circuit to be "on" and the voltage of zero is one that causes it to be "off".

Answer 6

It is known as Binary. It is the sequence of ON (1) and OFF (0) electrical signals that a computer uses.

Because a computer consists of electrical components it is the only form of data it understands. The computer uses a range of software to convert the ON and OFF signals into a language (or format) that is understandable by the user.

Hope it helps :)

Answer 7

It is actually really really simple. 0 and 1 does represent voltage, but even better, it represents on and off.... the 0's and 1's just signal how the components should operate as far as a path being on or off. It is simplistic, and I think we stay that way until we get into quantum mechanics.

Answer 8

It's a bug on Google's end, not ours. All we can do wait is patiently wait until they get the matter resolved. For now, if you must use Google, just copy and paste the url on the the bottom of the link you want to use. Or just use another search engine. I gotta tell you, it scared me too. But I relaxed once I realized this couldn't possibly be true. Every single site, minor or major, business or personal, is all malware? It would take a lot of organization and way more than one person to make that happen all at the same time.

Answer 9

It is called the binary system. By converting everything to numbers 0 & 1, the computer can recognize these numbers as "on" or "off" for various switches and circuits.

Don't ask me to explain it any further than that, that's as much as I understand--maybe you will get a techno-geek with more thorough explanation.

Answer 10

Ah, 0 and 1, the binary language. 0 and 1 refer to to "on" and "off," not some special voltage. Microprocessors are just huge banks of incredibly tiny switches which can be on or off, thus 0 (off) and 1 (on).