The Uniqueness of 16…
The first four odd numbers added – 1+3+5+7 equals 16.
A compass rose is divided into 16 points.
Chessboards have 16 black and 16 white pieces.
They are divided into four quadrants of 16 squares each.
Bookbinders use a standard format of sixteenmo, where the paper is divided into sixteen leaves.
Caterpillars usually have 16 legs! (But only 6 when they become butterflies).
Pre-decimal Imperial weights and measures used 16 ounces to a pound.
computers can only store and manipulate data in a binary base – base 2.
The earliest computer programs were written in binary by highly trained mathematicians. They were, however, highly prone to errors….
A method had to be found to “convert” large binary numbers to something that humans find easier to read and manipulate.
As base 2 does not convert to base 10 very easily, we use base 16 – hexadecimal – instead
Each Hexadecimal column uses a power of 16.
65536 4096 256 16 1
164 163 162 161 160
1 8 A 0 9 (these numbers are supposed to be spread out more like 1 under 164 and 8
under 163)
But we only have 10 unique symbols using the digits 0 to 9.
So to make up 16 symbols, we use the letters A – F as well.
The above number is worth 100873 in a decimal base.
We get this by multiplying and adding…..
(1x65536) + (8x4096) + (10x256) + (0x16) + 9
