N-Base Number System
Explore the concept of n-base number systems to understand how numbers can be represented using any base. Learn about base symbols, how place values are assigned as powers of n, and the range of numbers possible with k digits in any base system.
We'll cover the following...
An arbitrary number system
So far in this course we have looked at the decimal, binary, octal, and hexadecimal systems. We have seen how the properties of range and place values work for the base-10, base-2, base-8, and base-16 number systems. This might make us think that we could pick an arbitrary base and make our own number system. We wouldn’t be wrong the aforementioned patterns can most certainly extend to any -base number system!
Let’s see how, and generalize what we know about number systems to the rest of this lesson.
Symbols
The decimal system has ten base symbols, the binary system has two, and the hexadecimal system has sixteen. We can recognize a pattern here.
For an -base number ...