Computers not only operate on principles of mathematics, but are very useful in the often complex and time-consuming tasks mathematicians and scientists are required to perform. The operations and seemingly limitless abilities of computers are all based on, but it is a more basic numbering system than that to which we humans are accustomed. Just as the most common numbering system we use is based on the number of digits most familiar to us (our ten fingers), computers use only two numbers, the, to carry out their work. This system matches the basic operating unit of the computer, its, which is made up, in a sense, of on-off switches. In computer operations, off is equivalent to 0 and on to 1 in the binary numbering system. Computers are composed of millions or billions of these switches going on and off, or equaling 1 or 0, in ways that...