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Chapter 9. Bit by Bit by Bit

When Tony Orlando requested in a 1973 song that his beloved "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree," he wasn't asking for elaborate explanations or extended discussion. He didn't want any ifs, ands, or buts. Despite the complex feelings and emotional histories that would have been at play in the real-life situation the song was based on, all the man really wanted was a simple yes or no. He wanted a yellow ribbon tied around the tree to mean "Yes, even though you messed up big time and you've been in prison for three years, I still want you back with me under my roof." And he wanted the absence of a yellow ribbon to mean "Don't even think about stopping here."

These are two clear-cut, mutually exclusive alternatives. Tony Orlando did not sing, "Tie half of a yellow ribbon if you want to think about it for a while" or "Tie a blue ribbon if you don't love me anymore but you'd still like to be friends." Instead, he made it very, very simple.

Equally effective as the absence or presence of a yellow ribbon (but perhaps more awkward to put into verse) would be a choice of traffic signs in the front yard: Perhaps "Merge" or "Wrong Way."

Or a sign hung on the door: "Closed" or "Open."

Or a flashlight in the window, turned on or off.

You can choose from lots of ways to say yes or no if that's all you need to say. You don't need a sentence to say yes or no; you don't need a word, and you don't even need a letter. All you need is a bit, and by that I mean all you need is a 0 or a 1.

As we discovered in the previous chapters, there's nothing really all that special about the decimal number system that we normally use for counting. It's pretty clear that we base our number system on ten because that's the number of fingers we have. We could just as reasonably base our number system on eight (if we were cartoon characters) or four (if we were lobsters) or even two (if we were dolphins).

But there is something special about the binary number system. What's special about binary is that it's the simplest number system possible. There are only two binary digits—0 and 1. If we want something simpler than binary, we'll have to get rid of the 1, and then we'll be left with just a 0. We can't do much of anything with just a 0.

The word bit, coined to mean binary digit, is surely one of the loveliest words invented in connection with computers. Of course, the word has the normal meaning, "a small portion, degree, or amount," and that normal meaning is perfect because a bit—one binary digit—is a very small quantity indeed.

Sometimes when a new word is invented, it also assumes a new meaning. That's certainly true in this case. A bit has a meaning beyond the binary digits used by dolphins for counting. In the computer age, the bit has come to be regarded as the basic building block of information.

Now that's a bold statement, and of course, bits aren't the only things that convey information. Letters and words and Morse code and Braille and decimal digits convey information as well. The thing about the bit is that it conveys very little information. A bit of information is the tiniest amount of information possible. Anything less than a bit is no information at all. But because a bit represents the smallest amount of information possible, more complex information can be conveyed with multiple bits. (By saying that a bit conveys a "small" amount of information, I surely don't mean that the information borders on the unimportant. Indeed, the yellow ribbon is a very important bit to the two people concerned with it.)

"Listen, my children, and you shall hear / Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere," wrote Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and while he might not have been historically accurate when describing how Paul Revere alerted the American colonies that the British had invaded, he did provide a thoughtprovoking example of the use of bits to communicate important information:

He said to his friend