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Dictionary definition: number system
- Article from:
- A Dictionary of Computing
- Author:
Copyright© A Dictionary of Computing 2004, originally published by Oxford University Press 2004. (Hide copyright information)
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number system
Although early number systems were not positional, all of the number systems most commonly used today are
positional systems
: the value of a number in such a system is determined not just by the digits in the number but also by the position in the number of each of the digits. If a positional system has a
fixed radix
(or
fixed base
)
R
then each digit
a
i
in any number
a
n
a
n
–1
…
a
0
is an integer in the range 0 to (
R
– 1) and the number is interpreted as
a
n
R
n
+
a
n
–1
R
n
–1
+ … +
a
1
R
1
+
a
0
R
0
Since this is a polynomial in
R
, such numbers are sometimes called
polynomial numbers
. The decimal and ...