Perhaps we could get, say,
two volunteers to come on?
OK.
Saw one hand here and
one hand over here.
Come on down, if you want to meet
me on the other end of the stage.
Come on over here.
Come on down.
What's your name?
PRIYANKA: Priyanka.
DAVID MALAN: Priyanka, nice to meet you.
David.
Come on over and if you
want to wait right here.
And what's your name?
CALVIN: Calvin.
DAVID MALAN: Calvin?
CALVIN: Yeah.
DAVID MALAN: David.
Nice to meet you.
Come on over here where Priyanka is.
So Priyanka, you raised your
hand first, so you get to choose.
Do you want to go first or second
in this little challenge ahead?
PRIYANKA: Uh, I'll go first.
DAVID MALAN: OK.
So Priyanka is going to go first.
If you want to stand over there, Calvin.
So the challenge at
head here is could you
go ahead and represent for us in
binary, using each of these light bulbs
and, in turn, switches, as zeros
and ones, say, the number 50?
So you might turn one light bulb
on representing the 32s place.
Might turn a light bulb on
representing the eighth place.
Our total count now is
32 plus not 8 plus 16,
I think, which is going to give
us 32 plus 16, which is 48.
And so we get now a round of
applause, if we could, for Priyanka.
Thanks very much.
Give us just a moment.
So each of these light bulbs, then,
represents just a switch or a bit.
And inside of your computer, if you've
ever heard the phrase transistor,
a transistor is just a tiny
little switch in our computers.
So they have millions or
billions of these switches
that they use physically to represent
information and store values,
just like Priyanka did here.
So if a computer were to
represent the number 50,
it would literally turn on
three switches of sorts,
store a little bit of
electricity here, here,
and here to represent the number
50, and it would leave off
all of the other switches.
The other five, in this case, if
we're using eight bits or one byte.
Calvin you raised your hand second, and
so we have one other challenge ahead.
Fortunately, these things are magnetic,
so let's take things up a notch.
And if you would, Calvin--
[LAUGHTER]
--how about the number 13, if you will.
How would a computer
represent the number 13
where each of these light bulbs
from 1 to 128 represents a bit?
We had, of course, the ones place over
here, the twos place, four, eight,
16, and so forth.
So we can ask the audience, should we
turn on, for instance, this bulb here?
AUDIENCE: No.
DAVID MALAN: No.
Way too big.
How about this one?
CALVIN: No, too big.
DAVID MALAN: OK.
And you're in charge.
Ask the audience.
CALVIN: This one?
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
CALVIN: Yeah.
DAVID MALAN: OK.
So we have 1, 2, 4, 8.
CALVIN: 4.
DAVID MALAN: 4 gives us 8 plus 4 is 12.
And another round of
applause, if we could.
Thank you.
You got the tougher job.
Thanks to you both.
