Thread: bits and bytes help!

You design a machine that can scan the location of every atom in Andrew’s body and build an exact replica, atom by atom. Let’s ignore for a minute why you might want to do that. You wish to specify the location of each atom to within 1.0 × 10^–11 m.

In the machine, Andrew stands inside a box with dimensions 2.0 m × 0.5 m × 0.5 m. How many bits of information would be required to specify the location of a single atom in this box using (x, y, z) coordinates, to within 1.0 × 10^–11 m?

Any ideas on how to solve this?! Any hints would be helpful.

Originally Posted by amma0913

You design a machine that can scan the location of every atom in Andrew’s body and build an exact replica, atom by atom. Let’s ignore for a minute why you might want to do that. You wish to specify the location of each atom to within 1.0 × 10^–11 m.

In the machine, Andrew stands inside a box with dimensions 2.0 m × 0.5 m × 0.5 m. How many bits of information would be required to specify the location of a single atom in this box using (x, y, z) coordinates, to within 1.0 × 10^–11 m?

Any ideas on how to solve this?! Any hints would be helpful.

Lets look at how many bits are required to specify the x-position to

The lsb set will represent a distance of .

In a word of length all bits set will represent times the value corresponding to the lsb only set. So:



or:



etc...

CB