Why is hexadecimal used? Like what is it's most simplest and general purpose?

Question

I have a speech due on hex conversions, and the teacher always asks a question at the end, and I can see him asking something like this where I won't know how to put the answer into words. Can anyone give me a REALLY simple explanation of why th hexadecimal numbering system is used? Like maybe two sentences or something? I'd appreciate it!

Answer 1

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I won't give you an explicit answer, but consider this: Which of these two arithmetically equivalent character strings is easier to comprehend:

FFFF

or

1111111111111111

Hope that helps.

Answer 2

Hex is used a lot in computer applications because it's great for representing the binary bits and 8-bit bytes most computers use internally. Because 16 is 2^4 (two to the fourth power), each hex digit represents exactly four bits, and two hex digits represent exactly 8 bits, 2^8, a byte. A 32-bit address ranges from 0x00000000 - 0xFFFFFFFF in hex, from 0 - 4294967295 in decimal. The hex is easier to read and remember, and it's easier to manipulate bits of.

There's a decimal representation that you probably know that's similar to hex in it's ease of use, the dotted-decimal representation commonly used for IPv4 addresses, 255.255.255.255.

Answer 3

For assigning numbers to specific colours (e.g. #000000 is black, and #FFFFFF is white). This means that they need less characters to represent the millions of colours a computer screen can produce.