Computer Science – Data representation | e-Consult

Hexadecimal is a more efficient method of representing binary numbers than decimal because it uses fewer digits to represent the same amount of information. Decimal uses base-10, requiring 10 digits (0-9) to represent numbers up to 999,999,999. Binary uses base-2, requiring 32 digits to represent the same number. Hexadecimal uses base-16, requiring only 16 digits (0-9 and A-F) to represent the same number. This significantly reduces the number of characters needed.

For example, the binary number 10101010 is represented as AACA in hexadecimal. This is much shorter than the 32-bit binary representation.

The efficiency stems from the powers of 16 being powers of 2. Each hexadecimal digit represents a group of 4 binary digits (a 'nibble'). This direct correspondence makes conversion between binary and hexadecimal straightforward and reduces the complexity of handling large binary numbers.