Geek Clocks

I saw this ad for a neat LED clock. It looks complicated but turns out to be really simple. Then there was another link to a binary clock. I thought that would be complicated too and it was a bit more complicated but in the end not too bad (especially if you know binary). Then I remembered that there was a binary clock option for my Linux desktop so I tried it out. It's pretty fun. Here's the clock. Do you know what time it says?




Basically, binary is a number system based on powers of two. 2^0 = 1, 2^1 = 2, 2^2 = 4, 2^3 = 8. The clock works by combining combinations of these powers of two. Each row is a different power (0,1,2,3) and each column is a different digit of time, so the first two columns tell the hour, the second two the minute, and the last two the second.

The first green box on the left then tells you the hour is 1pm. The very first column is empty or 0 and the second column has a green box in the bottom row, so it is 2^0 = 1. The next two columns tells the minutes, 55. The second and third columns are both 5, where 2^0 + 2^2 = 5. The next two columns shows the seconds, 1. The fifth column is empty or 0. The sixth column again has one box in the bottom row, or 2^0 = 1. The time then was 1:55:01 pm.