Hex is used in mathematics and information technologies as a more friendly way to represent binary numbers. The letters are used because of the need to represent the values 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 each in one single symbol. These are the 10 decimal digits (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) and the first six letters of the English alphabet (A, B, C, D, E, F). As a base-16 numeral system, it uses 16 symbols. Combine the nibbles to make one binary number.The hexadecimal system (shortly hex), uses the number 16 as its base (radix).Convert each hexadecimal digit into its binary equivalent (a nibble).Split the hexadecimal number into individual digits.Remember, this is hexadecimal base 16 symbol 3, not denary symbol 3.

Next, convert each nibble into hexadecimalġ100 = hexadecimal C and 0011 = hexadecimal 3.Start at the rightmost digit and break the binary number into nibbles.A nibble can hold 16 values in its 4 bits so is useful for converting hexadecimal. The simplest way to convert from binary to hexadecimal, and vice versa, is to split the binary number into nibbles (four bits ) first, then convert each nibble to hexadecimal. Converting between binary and hexadecimal Programmers often use hexadecimal to represent binary values as they are simpler to write and check than when using binary. For example, colour values and MAC addresses are often represented in hexadecimal.Īdditionally, hexadecimal is easier to understand than binary. Hexadecimal is useful because large numbers can be represented using fewer digits. It has 16 symbols - 0-9 and the capital letters A, B, C, D, E and F. Hexadecimal, also known as hex, is the third commonly-used number system and is base 16.

binary is base 2, which has two symbols (0-1).

denary is base 10, which has ten symbols (0-9).In computer science, different number bases are used:

Convert mac address from hex to binary