In this episode Julie Gould and Phil Smyth ask what maths is going on inside the machines that help keep the modern world going? It's all about Computers and Boolean Maths.
Julie Has more here...
Computers are the lifeblood of our modern day world. If every computer in the world turned off at the same time, nothing would work. The interesting thing is, you don't need to know how all the internal mechanics of a computer to understand how computers do calculations.
And this is where maths comes in. Maths is used in computers to compute, or "process" and store data and information. At their most basic level, computers can only compute one thing: whether something is true or false.
For example - I have a biscuit in front of me - true. It will be here at the end of the podcast - false!
This type of maths is called Boolean Maths, and it's been around for a few hundred years.
Early computers had mechanical switches that can send signals - true or false. Think of them like a tap: open the tap and water flows through. Close the tap and the water stops. Open: on, closed: off. Or Open the water is flowing - true / closed the water is flowing - false.
The mechanical switch inside a big computer is the same, but instead of water, it’s electricity.
Why not tune into this episode of Maths Matters to find out about the way computers use Boolean maths, and listen to me playing a VERY frustrating basic computer game that follows the rules of Boolean maths!
Maths Matters is one of the Home School Hub podcasts - Subscribe to them ALL here!
