Why binary and not ternary computing?

Question

Isn\'t a three state object immedately capable of holding more information and handling larger values? I know that processors currently use massive nets of XOR gates and th

Answer 1

A lot of it has to do with the fact that ultimately, bits are represented as electrical impulses, and it's easier to build hardware that simply differentiates between "charged" and "no charge", and to easily detect transitions between states. A system utilizing three states has to be a bit more exact in differentiating between "charged", "partly charged", and "no charge". Besides that, the "charged" state is not constant in electronics: the energy starts to "bleed" eventually, so a "charged" state varies in actual "level" of energy. In a 3-state system, this would have to be taken into account, too.