Binary Numbers

I taught my seniors binary numbers this week. Let me remind you that these are students who would rather be doing anything else in the world but math. Most of them don't even like coming to school.

I taught binary numbers anyway.

I thought that of all of the number bases that our book covers, binary (base 2) is by far the most important. Not only did I teach them how to convert our decimal base 10 numbers to binary and back, but I explained that computers convert letters and punctuation into binary so that they can read them. That started something.

A group of students wanted to know how to change letters into binary. They started by using the book's brief paragraph to help them. Around the letter "H" they got a little stuck and I heard, "Miss, what's the letter H in binary?" (I think some of my students forget my name, so they just call me "Miss" occasionally.) Of course, I have the entire alphabet memorized in binary :) They decided to give up their lunch time to go to the library and look them up.

They came back the next day with the translation for capital letters, lower case letters, and punctuation. When I told them that a friend in college had a binary copy of the Declaration of Independence (I'm not exactly sure what it was, but that was good enough for them), they decided to start passing notes to each other in binary and even left me one on my board. It said, "Gimme Some Cheese" or at least it did, when they finally got it right.

Now they are convinced - despite my assurances otherwise - that they can hack into computers, into the president's cell, and if they send a text to someone in binary, the phone will explode. I hope their not too disappointed when they find out that they can't do any of those things.