Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, the great mathematician and pioneer of computer science and binary number calculations. © University of Massachusetts Lowell Binary ...

In the computer, all data are represented as binary digits (bits), and eight binary digits make up one byte. For example, the upper case letter A is 0101001. Numbers however can take several forms.

Binary arithmetic, the basis of all virtually digital computation today, is usually said to have been invented at the start of the eighteenth century by the German mathematician Gottfried Leibniz. But ...