What is binary and what is hexadecimal?
Binary and hexadecimal are two different numbering systems used to represent numbers in computers and other digital devices.
Binary is a base-2 numbering system that consists of only two digits: 0 and 1. It is used to represent numbers in digital devices because the two digits can be easily represented by the two states of a transistor or a digital circuit.
Hexadecimal, on the other hand, is a base-16 numbering system that uses 16 digits: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, and F. It is often used as a shorthand representation of binary numbers because it is more compact and easier to read than binary.
To sumarise, binary and hexadecimal are different numbering systems used to represent numbers in digital devices, with binary being the most basic and hexadecimal being a more compact representation of binary numbers.
How to convert a hexidecimal number to binary
Converting a hexadecimal number to binary involves the following steps:
Map each hexadecimal digit to its equivalent 4-bit binary representation:
| Hexadecimal |
Binary |
| 0 |
0000 |
| 1 |
0001 |
| 2 |
0010 |
| 3 |
0011 |
| 4 |
0100 |
| 5 |
0101 |
| 6 |
0110 |
| 7 |
0111 |
| 8 |
1000 |
| 9 |
1001 |
| A |
1010 |
| B |
1011 |
| C |
1100 |
| D |
1101 |
| E |
1110 |
| F |
1111 |
Replace each hexadecimal digit in the original number with its binary equivalent.
For example, the hexadecimal number "3A9" would be converted to binary as follows:
3A9 (hex) = 0011 1010 1001 (bin)
Therefore, the binary equivalent of the hexadecimal number 3A9 is 001110101001.
