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Can you solve the risky disk riddle? - James Tanton

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TEDEd Animation

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Your antivirus squad is up against a code that’s hijacked your mainframe. What you’ve learned from other infected systems, right before they went dark, is that it likes to toy with antivirus agents in a very peculiar way— and you’re the agent that’s been selected to go up against the malware. Can you figure out which disk that runs your mainframe has been corrupted? James Tanton shows how.

The numbers zero, one, two, and three can each be represented as two-digit binary codes: 00,01, 10, 11, respectively. What is the largest number that can be represented by a five-digit binary code? By a six-digit binary code? By a ten-digit binary code?

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Meet The Creators

  • Educator James Tanton
  • Director Igor Coric, Artrake Studio
  • Music Cem Misirlioglu
  • Sound Designer Cem Misirlioglu
  • Director of Production Gerta Xhelo
  • Editorial Director Alex Rosenthal
  • Producer Bethany Cutmore-Scott
  • Narrator Addison Anderson

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