computer science data representation

What is a natural number

A set of positive integers and 0

What is integer numbers

The set of numbers with no fractional part

What is a rational number

The set of numbers that can be expressed as the ratio of two integers Eg.1/3 or 0.1111

Explain the binary number base system

A number of system that only uses ones and zeros to represent numbers base 2

Define irrational numbers

Numbers which cannot be expressed as a ratio of two integers this does not include pi

Real numbers definition

The set of numbers that can be represented real world quantities and have an imaginary part of 0. These include rational and irrational numbers

Original numbers definition

Natural numbers used to describe numerical positions or order of objects

Decimal number base system

A number system that only uses 10 characters 0-9 to represent a base 10 number system

Explain hexadecimal base system

A number base system that only uses 16 characters 0-9 and A-F to represent numbers in the base 16 system

Base number

The number of unique digits used in particular number systems to represent numbers

What is a bit

A binary digit used by computers as fundamental unit of information

What is a byte

A group of 8 bits

What is a binary prefix

A prefix to a unit representing a power of 2

What is a decimal prefix

A prefix to a unit representing a power of 10

What involves signed binary

A binary number system that can represent both positive and negative numbers

What involves unsigned binary

A binary number system that can only represent positive numbers

What is twos complement

A coding scheme used in single binary to represent negative as well as positive numbers. Negative is done by flipping all the digits and adding 1 to the most significant bit

What is an exponent

A component of floating point from that stores the numbers of positions to move the decimal point

Explain what a fixed point form

A form used to represent numbers with fractional part in any number system. Digits after the fixed point are multiplied by the bas raised to a negative power

What is a floating point form

A form used to represent numbers with fractional part in any number system. The radix point is free to move due to the presence of an adjustable exponent

Explain what a mantissa is

A component of floating point form that stores the non-zero significant digits of a number

Explain what a rounding error is

Errors inherently introduced to any calculations with fixed or floating point numbers since they cannot store numbers with infinite precisions

What is an absolute error

The difference between the exact correct value and rounded value

What is a relative error

The percentage difference between the exact correct value and rounded value

What does normalisation

The process of ensuring a floating point number is represented as efficiently as possible by adjusting the position of radix point and exponent

What’s under flow

The misinterpretation of numerical value because it is too small to be represented with the allocated number of digits in the mantissa and exponent

What’s overflow

The misinterpretation of a numerical value value because it’s to large to be represented with the allocated number of digits in the mantissa and exponent

What is character code

A unique binary representation of a character not binary representation

ASCII

A character set used to represent alphanumeric characters or symbols as a set of 8 bits

What is a Unicode

A character set that is a superset of ASCII. It is used to represent alphanumeric characters or symbols as an integer code which is equal to the characters ASCII code