Computers only understand two things: on (1) or off (0). So, how do we get them to do everything else? Welcome to the world of binary.

The economic organization in Mangareva and other Polynesian cultures made counting very important. Their counting system was a hybrid of decimal and binary.

However, for those important tribute goods — turtles, fish, coconuts, octopuses, and breadfruit — the Mangarevans developed a special counting system, based partially on binary.

New Delhi, Dec. 16: A group of remote Pacific islanders may have discovered binary mathematics, a key element of modern computing machines, hundreds of years before German mathematician-philosopher ...