How Computers Handle Negative Numbers (and Sometimes Get It Wrong)

The digital worldruns on binary . But while act made up of single and zeroes is easy enough to get your headspring round , what come about when you need to express a negative number in digital form ?

https://gizmodo.com/how-to-read-text-in-binary-1623727454

In fact , it ’s not too unlike to the way we put a negative mark at the left - most side of a bit : you merely place a sign bit at the left , which takes a value of 0 or 1 if the number is incontrovertible or negative . But , as Professor Brailsford explains in this video , it does n’t always go to plan — and it can be sticky , or even unsafe , when it goes wrong . [ Computerphile ]