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In the tradition of gematria, are there any methods for taking binary values and generating words out of them?

I'm working on a story that involves a character obsessing over a particular chunk of binary numbers, and if there's an opportunity to have a character do this, it would serve the story quite well.

If this is possible, what are the options for interpretation? Is this something that someone could obsess over for years, arguing with others over? What are the restrictions on this kind of methodology? Does this sort of interpretation relate to Kabbalah, or is that an ancillary discipline?

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There is nothing directly you can do with Gematria (what you are asking about) and Binary numbers. Hebrew has no letter for 0.

The best you can do is turn the binary numbers into base Ten numbers, and then do gematria on that.

avi
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  • You don't need a 0 in binary any more than you do in decimal. But I'll agree that I've never heard of a connection between binary and gimatriya. Really, decimal notation, binary notation, and gimatriya are three ways of representing a number (though gimatriya can be more), so whatever number is represented by a particular binary numeral can be represented in gimatriya as well as if it were written in decimal (which seems to be what you're saying, "turn the..."). – msh210 Oct 16 '11 at 08:08
  • In theory you would be able to use the Aleph for 1 and some other letter for 0 and then look at the words spelled, and deviate from there... though maybe someone could use yud(10) for 1 and hey(5) for 0 and do something with divine names?!? – avi Oct 18 '11 at 10:21
  • You don't need a 0 in binary. We get by without it in decimal. But I'll take back my "Really... whatever... as well..." statement, noting instead: Standard gimatriya is 1, 2, 3, ..., 9, 10, 20, ..., 90, 100, 200, 300, 400 (22 letters). If you wanted binary, you would make it instead (in decimal notation) 1, 2, 4, 8, ..., 2097152. Just as 65 is represented by 60 and 5 (samech he) in standard gimatriya, it'd be represented by 64 and 1 (zayin alef) in binary gimatriya. No need for a 0. – msh210 Oct 18 '11 at 15:38
  • That works for turning gematria into binary, but not binary into gematria. What is the series of hebrew letters of 010010101 ? – avi Oct 18 '11 at 18:25
  • avi, you reverse the procedure, and get ches he gimel alef. – msh210 Oct 18 '11 at 19:02
  • huh? the sequence I provided is either the letter J, so it could be the 10th letter which is Yud, or its the number 128 + 16 + 4 + 1. So maybe its Kuf Chaf Chet, and Tet Zayin and Dalet and Aleph, or its 149 and is Kuf Mem Tet? I don't see how you got ches he gimel alef. – avi Oct 18 '11 at 19:43
  • avi: The way letters and gimatriyaos match in decimal is that the first letters match multiples of 1 (1, 2, ...) until we reach 10, the next letters match multiples of 10 (10, 20, ...) until we reach 100, and the next letters match multiples of 100 until we run out of letters. So we have the alef-bes corresponding to 1, 2, ..., 9, 10, 20, ..., 90, 100, 200, 300, 400. If we wanted to do the same in binary, then we'd have multiples of 1 until we reach 2, then multiples of 2 until we reach 4, then multiples of 4 until we reach 8, etc. [continued] – msh210 Oct 18 '11 at 20:44
  • [continued] That'd make the alef-bes correspond to 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, ..., 2097152. So the number you posted, 149 (10010101 in binary), would be represented by ches he gimel alef for 128+16+4+1 in this binary gimatriya system, much as it's represented by kof mem tes for 100+40+9 in real gimatriya. (Incidentally, I have no idea where you got "J" from.) – msh210 Oct 18 '11 at 20:44
  • I see. Interesting conversion there. I typed J into this translator to get the sequence I provided. http://home2.paulschou.net/tools/xlate/ Anyway, I think this should sufficiently answer the original question :) – avi Oct 18 '11 at 20:57