From TheBestLinks.com
- This article is about a unit of information, see Bit (disambiguation) for other meanings.
A bit is an information unit used in computing and information theory. It is the smallest unit of storage currently used in these fields, although much research is going on in quantum computing with qubits. A single bit (short for binary digit) is a 0 (zero) or a 1, or a true or a false, or for that matter any two mutually exclusive states.
A byte is a collection of bits, originally variable in size but now usually eight bits. Eight-bit bytes are also known as octets. A four-bit quantity is known as a nibble. Two bytes (16-bits) are known as a word.
There are also terms for multiple bits using the standard range of prefixes, eg. kilobit (kb), megabit (Mb) and gigabit (Gb).
By extension, ones or zeros in a computerised binary number are called bits.
Telecommunications or computer network traffic volume is usually described in terms of bits per second. For example, a "56 kbit/s modem" is capable of transferring data at 56 kilobits in a second (which is equal to 7 kilobytes, 7 kB, with capitalised B to mark that we are talking about bytes and not about bits;); Ethernet transfers data at speeds ranging from 10 megabits per second to 1000 megabits per second (from 1.25 to 125 megabytes per second). The SI prefixes kilo-, mega-, etc., are sometimes modified in meaning when applied to bits and bytes: for an explanation, see Binary prefixes.
See also
ca:Bit
cs:Bit
da:Bit
de:Bit
et:Bitt
es:Bit
eo:Bito
fr:Bit
ko:비트
ia:Bit
it:Bit
hu:Bit
nl:Bit
ja:ビット
pl:Bit
pt:Bit
ro:Bit
ru:Бит
sl:Bit
fi:Bitti
sv:Bit
zh:位
Related links
Top visited
0 of
0 links
[no links posted yet]
>> place link >>
Discussion
Last posted
0 of
0 messages
[no messages posted yet]
>> post message >>
Watch
You can
add this article to your own "watchlist" and receive e-mail notification about all changes in this page.
