ABSTRACT
Computers process information in binary digital form. The smallest unit of measure is a bit, which is an abbreviation for binary digit. Each bit has two possible values: 0 (off) and 1 (on). A byte is eight bits, or 28, and contains 256 discrete values:
28 = 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 = 256
The metric number system is used for counting, because it easily deals with very large numbers. The metric system uses the following prefixes:
kilo (k) = 1,000 (thousand) mega (M) = 1,000,000 (million) giga (G) = 1,000,000,000 (billion) tera (T) = 1,000,000,000,000 (trillion)
This system makes it easier to describe large phenomena. For example, the bandwidth of broadcast television is 6 MHz (six megahertz). This is a more economical way to describe 6,000,000 Hz (six million hertz).
