quartz/content/notes/01-bits-and-bytes.md

title	aliases	tags
01-bits-and-bytes		cosc204 lecture

What is data

• A fact — a piece of information
  • corresponds to discreete facts about phenomena from which we gain information abou the world
• The concept of a value is fundamental to data
  • e.g., 25, $356.00, April, "this is a sentence", colours etc
• Vaues are abstract, they are interpretations of data
  • There are many way of storing the same data
  • e.g., 12, twelve, XII, 1100, · ··, ·----··---

How computers represent data

• In Binary
• Stored in one of two states, true/false, 1/0, on/off, voltage/no voltage