Basics

Numbers are represented in the form with the 'Mantissa', the number base (a fixed property of the computer) and an integer exponent. Often, the exponent is expressed as where is, again, a machine constant.

In addition, these numbers are stored in binary form, whereby each digit in the number represents a coefficient of a power of 2 rather then the coefficient of a power of 10 as in the common decimal system. For example:

> convert(55,binary);

> 1*2^5+1*2^4+0*2^3+1*2^2+1*2^1+1*2^0;

> convert(110111,decimal,binary);

Binary notation is used because it can easily be represented electronically: the only two possible digits are 0 or1, or charged or not charged, on or off.