Answer:
Computers depend mainly on binary because it’s more time efficient for them to so.
Explanation:
It’s easier to identify 0 as “off” and 1 as “on”. As you may know, transistors are the fundamental blocks of microprocessors and ICs. The reasons this is the case is that these transistors form logic gates which can carry out basic logic operations. These logic gates are a huge step into making microprocessors/ICs/etc. And what do these logic gates depend on? They depend on binary.
Whoa whoa, wait a minute. Let’s first take a step back to know a thing or two about logic gates.
These logic gate can be constructed from transistors. They carry basic logic operations. You have one or more inputs “entering” the logic gate ——-> A certain operation is performed on them ——-> you get your output. The input is a voltage. This voltage it can be interpreted as an “on” or “off” according to the gate. Once again these offs and ons are 0s and 1s. For example the Inverter/NOT gate is a gate that simply takes an input and gives its inverse. For example:-
A low voltage/an “off” signal/ a “0” “enters” the NOT gate. ——-> A high voltage/an “on” signal/ a “1” is the result of the operation performed
(In the above example low voltage = “off” signal = 0, high voltage = “on” signal = 1)
As you can see, a 0 enters the NOT gate and a 1 comes out or vice versa. Now, if you were a logic gate, you’d prefer working with just 0s and 1s right? I would. This would be much easier to work with than a lot of different values.
It’s a herculean task to work with these though as a human. And fortunately, programming languages exist for giving the computer instructions to do in a “language” other than its own.
