the.com/binary code

means A system for representing any information — numbers, text, images, instructions — using only two symbols, 0 and 1, whose combinations a computer reads as electrical off/on states.

from The word 'binary' comes from Latin 'binarius,' meaning 'consisting of two,' from 'bini,' 'two together.' The mathematical idea of a base-2 number system was developed by Gottfried Leibniz in the late 1600s, partly inspired by his fascination with the ancient Chinese I Ching's hexagrams of broken and unbroken lines. But binary didn't become 'code' in the modern sense until the 20th century, when engineers building electronic computers realized that a two-state system — current flowing or not, a switch on or off — was the simplest, most reliable way to represent Leibniz's 0s and 1s in physical hardware. The pairing of ancient philosophy, 17th-century mathematics, and 20th-century electronics is what gave us the digital world.