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'Finger binary' is a system for counting and displaying binary numbers on the fingers of one or more hands. It is possible to display all numbers from 0 to 1023 with both hands.

Contents

How it works

Visualizing finger binary

The second hand

The curling of fingers

See also

External links

How it works

Fingers are given the following values:

★ Holding one's hand as a fist = 0

★ One's thumb = 1

★ One's index finger = 2

★ One's middle finger = 4

★ One's ring finger = 8

★ One's little finger = 16
As an alternate method, the little finger is 1, ring is 2, middle is 4, index is 8 and thumb is 16; the principle is the same.

Visualizing finger binary

Imagine this set of five 0's is your right hand:
:00000
Each place has a value double of that next to it, so we have the following:

	Fist	Thumb	Index	Middle	Ring	Little finger
Value	0	1	2	4	8	16

The second hand

It is possible to use a second hand to continue from the first.

Hand 1						Hand 2
Fist	Thumb	Index	Middle	Ring	Little finger	Little finger	Ring	Middle	Index	Thumb
0	1	2	4	8	16	32	64	128	256	512

Combining this, all numbers from 0-1023 can be displayed (2¹⁰ = 1024 possible permutations) see also Binary numeral system.

The curling of fingers

It is possible to use the orientation of the fingers to count to even greater numbers, although one could not represent numbers such as 1025.

	Hand 1						Hand 2
	Fist	Thumb	Index	Middle	Ring	Little finger	Little finger	Ring	Middle	Index	Thumb
Normal	0	1	2	4	8	16	32	64	128	256	512
Curled		1024	2048	4096	8192	16384	32768	65536	131072	262144	524288

It is also possible to represent balanced ternary numbers in this manner.

	Hand 1						Hand 2
	Fist	Thumb	Index	Middle	Ring	Little finger	Little finger	Ring	Middle	Index	Thumb
Normal	0	1	3	27	81	243	729	2187	6516	19683	59049
Curled		-1	-3	-27	-81	-243	-729	-2187	-6516	-19683	-59049

See also

★ Chisanbop

External links

How to count to 1,023 on your fingers