English

Noun

binary system ‎(plural binary systems)

1. (astronomy) Two gravitationally connected stars or other celestial objects which orbit around their center of mass.
   • 2011 December 7, Jeffrey Kluger, "Star Wars Gets Real," Time:

     [S]cientists from the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute found subtle dips in the light coming from a binary system about 200 million light years from Earth.

2. (mathematics, computing) A numeric system with a base of 2, using only the numerals 0 and 1.
   • 2004 January 28, Jennifer L. Schenker, "A quantum leap in codes for secure transmissions," New York Times (retrieved 10 April 2013):

     Quantum cryptography is one of the first applications of quantum physics, which is expected to replace today's binary system of computing, in which data is represented in series of ones and zeros.

See also

• binary star

References

• binary system at OneLook Dictionary Search