Binary
Also called base two, 0 and 1
Leibniz, 1703; used as a script for machines and for messages
Modern symbolsBinary meaning
Binary is a way of writing numbers with only 0 and 1. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz published it in 1703. The Arecibo message and the power symbol are later uses of those two digits. The falling code in The Matrix is a picture of the idea, not a form of the arithmetic.
Two digits. Every later machine script is a reader of them.
The name. Binary means made of two. Leibniz’s essay of 1703 is the usual origin for binary arithmetic as a published system. The digits 0 and 1 are older characters. The system is the decision to write every number with only those two.
Where it comes from
In 1703 Leibniz published Explication de l'Arithmétique Binaire in the journal of the Paris academy. He showed that every whole number can be written with 0 and 1, and he noted that the system resembles the broken and unbroken lines of the Yijing, which a Jesuit correspondent had described to him. The resemblance pleased him. It is not a claim that the trigrams were binary arithmetic in the modern sense. They are a divination text. His essay is an arithmetic. George Boole’s algebra, in the middle of the nineteenth century, gave logic a two-valued form. Claude Shannon’s 1937 work showed that the algebra maps onto switches. After that, binary is how electronic machines store a number. The plaques and the Arecibo grid use it because a dash and a gap, or a 1 and a 0, do not require a shared alphabet. The power symbol uses it because a button can show on and off without a word. Those are applications. The 1703 essay is the publication people cite for the arithmetic itself. Earlier mathematicians had touched base two. Leibniz is the one who explained it as a system and tied it, a little too eagerly, to a Chinese diagram. The lexicon draws a 0 and a 1. It does not draw the Matrix’s rain.
Geometry
A count, not a picture
Binary does not depict an object. It is a notation, like the equals sign and the radical in the working-signs line. Its claim is that two symbols are enough for the integers. That claim can be proved in a page. It does not need a cosmology. Leibniz wanted one anyway, and the Yijing gave him a place to point. Keep the proof and the pointing in separate sentences. The bagua page is the pointing’s object. This page is the arithmetic.
Modern
Readers, in order
After the essay: Boolean logic, switching circuits, digital computers, then public pictures of computers. The Arecibo message is a public picture that is also a real transmission. The standby button is a public picture that is also a real switch. The green rain in a 1999 film is a public picture that is only a picture. Order is the method. A reader who starts from the film and works backward will think the arithmetic was invented to look like code. It was invented to count.
In fiction
film · 1999
Rain is a later reader
The Matrix (film, 1999)
The Matrix shows columns of falling glyphs as the look of a simulated world. Audiences call it binary. Much of the rain is not binary digits. It is a graphic of code, including katakana and numerals, chosen because it reads as a machine’s weather. Leibniz’s 0 and 1 are an arithmetic from 1703. The film is a picture from 1999 of what computation had come to feel like. The feeling is not the notation. The notation does not fall. It sits in a place-value column and names a number. The rain is a reader of the idea of code, and a loose one.
The MatrixIn popular culture
tv · 2000
Futurama, 'The Honking'
Bloody binary 0101100101 reads 666 in a mirror, terrifying Bender; a Shining 'Redrum' gag in machine language. Bender's apartment number 00100100 is ASCII for $.
Jokes that only work if the audience trusts that binary means something.
Sourcefilm · 1979
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Spock identifies V'ger's signal as a simple binary code sent by carrier wave.
The film treats binary as a message from a machine, not as the origin of the digits.
Sourcegame · 2007 / 2021
Mass Effect / Deltarune
A rogue AI's last binary message decodes to HELP; Deltarune's Tasque speaks 'me'/'ow' binary that decodes to a ♥ when petted.
A rogue AI's last binary message decodes to HELP; Deltarune's Tasque speaks 'me'/'ow' binary that decodes to a ♥ when petted, a later reading.
SourceWorth knowing
- Binary 100 is read 'one zero zero' and equals four. Source
Questions
What does the Binary mean?
Binary is a way of writing numbers with only 0 and 1. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz published it in 1703. The Arecibo message and the power symbol are later uses of those two digits. The falling code in The Matrix is a picture of the idea, not a form of the arithmetic.
How do I type the Binary?
The character is 01 (U+0030 U+0031).
Why does The Matrix use binary?
The Matrix shows columns of falling glyphs as the look of a simulated world. Audiences call it binary.
Why does Futurama, 'The Honking' use binary?
Bloody binary 0101100101 reads 666 in a mirror, terrifying Bender; a Shining 'Redrum' gag in machine language. Bender's apartment number 00100100 is ASCII for $.
Near this
Sources
Named when the entry depends on a text, a date, or a standard. Catalog numbers are not invented.
Your margin
Private. It stays in this browser and never joins the canon.
symbol.wiki, edited as Sigilla. Last reviewed 20 October 2026. A reading of public tradition, not a ruling.