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What does shifting the binary point one position left do?

1) Doubles the value
2) Halves the value
3) Increases the precision
4) Decreases the precision

1 Answer

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Final answer:

In the binary number system, shifting the binary point one position to the left doubles the value of the number. Therefore, the correct answer is:Halves the value

Step-by-step explanation:

Shifting the binary point one position to the left in a binary number effectively doubles the value of the number. This is analogous to moving a decimal point one place to the left in the decimal system, which multiplies the number by 10. However, in the binary system, since it is base-2, the value is multiplied by 2.

Therefore, the correct answer to the question is that it doubles the value. To illustrate, if we have a binary number like 10 (which is 2 in decimal), shifting the binary point one place left will result in 100 (which is 4 in decimal).

Shifting the binary point one position left in a binary value is equivalent to dividing the value by 2. This is because each position to the left represents a power of 2.

For example, shifting the binary point left by one position in the binary value 1010 would result in the decimal value 5, as 1010 represents 10 in binary, and 10 divided by 2 is 5.

Therefore, the correct answer is:Halves the value

User Timothy Zorn
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