Electrical Engineering ⇒ Topic : Decimal Number System

DECIMAL NUMBER SYSTEM

Decimal number system uses ten digits from 0 to 9. So its base or radix is 10. The base or radix of a number system is defined as the number of digits that it uses to represent the number. The weight of each digit of a decimal number is dependent on its relative position. To explain this, let us take a decimal number 7286.

                           7286 = 7000 + 200 + 80 + 6

                                    = 7 x 10³ + 2 x 10² + 8 x 10¹ + 6 x 10°

Therefore,

        Weight of the first digit of the number from the right hand side = 1st digit x 10°.

        Weight of the second digit of the number from the right hand side = 2nd digit x 10¹.

        Weight of the third digit of the number from the right hand side = 3rd digit x 10².

        Weight of the fourth digit of the number from the right hand side = 4th digit x 10³.

In general, for nth digit, it can be written as = nth digit x (base) ^n-1

From above, it is obvious that the number system in which the weight of each digit depends on the relative position within the number is called positional number system