The Eleven Plus and the Binary System

It is a matter of great sadness, to some, that the Binary System is no longer considered to be important enough to be included in any current eleven plus mathematics system. After all this is the language of computers. We use ten digits (Base 10) when we are doing mathematics – as we use numbers from 0 – 9. Computers use 0 and 1.

1 = 00001
2 = 00010
3 = 00011
4 = 00100
5 = 00101
6 = 00110
7 = 00111
8 = 01000
9 = 01001

It is possible to apply the four rules with binary numbers. 2 + 3 = 5 so 10 + 11 = 101.

The binary system is also used for letters.

The letter A, for example, is represented in the binary system by A = 01000001.
The word eleven then becomes E = 01000101 + L = 01001100 + E = 01000101 + V = 01010110 + E = 01000101 + N = 01001110. (We must be thankful that there are so many `Es’!)

Eleven plus children already need to know their tables in our current base 10 system. It may only be a matter of time before the children have to learn 10 times 11 = 110.