What happens if you need to display a large binary number such as:
1111 1011 1111 1010 0011
Larger binary numbers are hard to remember and hard to write out without making a mistake. Hexadecimal is a number system (base-16) and makes use of 0-9 and A-F. It allows us to work with binary numbers in a more manageable way. Each 4 bits of a binary number can be represented with 1 hexadecimal digit. For example:
1011 = B
Hexadecimal numbers are used commonly when representing colours on web pages.
Converting between binary and hexadecimal requires you to understand the basics of converting between binary and denary. At GCSE, you will only ever be asked to convert 8 bit binary numbers (2 digit hexadecimal numbers). Below is how you should convert a two digit hexadecimal number to a 8 bit binary number.
The process is reversed to convert a 8 bit binary number back to a hexadecimal number.
