# Newton’s Clock, Part 3

So now I’m up to “4” on Newton’s clock:

So the expression

${\left({2\sin\frac{\mathit{\pi}}{2}}\right)}^{2}$

uses the sine function which has been talked about many posts before. Only this time, it is using radian measure of angles instead of degrees. If your calculator is in degree mode, you can substitute 90° in place of 𝜋/2 to get the same answer. The sine of 𝜋/2 radians or 90° is 1. So in the brackets we have 2 × 1 = 2. 2² = 4, hence its position on the clock.

Now let’s look at

$\sqrt[3]{125}$

This is the cube root of 125. This expression is asking the question: “What number multiplied 3 times equals 125?”. The answer to that is 5 because 5 × 5 × 5 = 125. So once again, the clock does not lie.

Now let’s look at 3! This is pronounced “3 factorial”. The factorial of a number is that number successively multiplied by a number which is 1 less. So 5! = 5 × 4 × 3 × 2 × 1 = 120. So 3! = 3 × 2 × 1 = 6. Factorials are used a lot in probability. I have touched on this before but perhaps there is another future post here.

Now let’s look at 01112. We are very familiar with decimal system way of counting. This system is a base 10 system because we use 10 distinct digits (symbols) to count: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. When we run out of digits, like when we count up to 9, we add another place holder to the right of the number and put the starting digit 0 there: 10. And then successively increase it’s digits until we get to 9 again. then we increase the left digit by 1 and start over again: 20, 21, … . There are other number systems based on numbers other than ten.

Computers are composed of switches based on two states, on or off. We mathematically say that off is 0 and on is 1. Computers essentially count with just o’s and 1’s: a base 2 system. Counting in base 2 is done exactly as we do in base 10, we just have fewer digits to work with.

So we if we start counting we get 0, 1, but we’ve ran out of digits so we add a place holder to the right and start again: 0, 1, 10, 11. Ran out of digits again so add another place holder and start over: 0, 1, 10, 11, 100, 101, 110, 111. If you are keeping track, 111 in base 2 is equal to 7 in base 10. It is a convention to subscript a number with its base when dealing with other base systems, so 01112 means 7 in base 10. The leading 0 doesn’t add to the value but in computer maths, base 2 numbers are typically written 4 digit places at a time.