What is binary?

Binary is a way to count using only two numbers: 0 and 1.

Imagine you have a toy light switch, it can be either off or on. That’s like how binary works: everything is just combinations of off (0) and on (1). Instead of counting with the numbers we use every day, like 1, 2, 3, computers count using only these two states.

Think about it like a game of lights. If you have one light, you can show:

• 0 means off
• 1 means on

Now imagine you have two lights, each one can be off or on. That gives you four different combinations:

• 00 (both off)
• 01 (first off, second on)
• 10 (first on, second off)
• 11 (both on)

Each light is like a digit in binary. With more lights (or digits), you can count even higher, just like how we use more numbers to count bigger things.

So, when computers do math or show pictures, they're really just playing with lots of tiny switches that are either off or on!