Meaning – The term hexadecimal, refers to the base-16 number system. It is a different method of representing numbers than the base-10 system we use in everyday practice.
While computers process numbers using the base-2, or binary system, it is often more efficient to visually represent the numbers in hexadecimal format. This is because it only takes one hexadecimal digit to represent four binary digits. Since there are eight binary digits in a byte, only two hexadecimal digits are needed to represent one byte.
The term hexadecimal also refers to the selection, choice, or condition that has 16 possible different values or states.
Example of usage – “While studying electronics, one of the first things he learnt was the different number systems, including binary, octal and hexadecimal systems.”
