0x3210

0x3210 refers to a hexadecimal number. In computing, hexadecimal (often abbreviated as hex) is a base-16 numeral system. It uses sixteen distinct symbols, most commonly the digits 0-9 and the letters A-F. Each symbol represents a value from 0 to 15. The prefix "0x" is a common convention in many programming languages and contexts to indicate that a number is written in hexadecimal format.

Therefore, 0x3210 represents the number (3 * 16^3) + (2 * 16^2) + (1 * 16^1) + (0 * 16^0) in base-10. Calculating this sum: (3 * 4096) + (2 * 256) + (1 * 16) + (0 * 1) = 12288 + 512 + 16 + 0 = 12816. So, 0x3210 in hexadecimal is equivalent to 12816 in decimal.

Hexadecimal notation is frequently used in computer science because it provides a more human-readable representation of binary-coded values. A single hexadecimal digit can represent exactly four binary digits (bits), making conversions between hexadecimal and binary straightforward. For example, in 0x3210, '3' is 0011 in binary, '2' is 0010, '1' is 0001, and '0' is 0000. Thus, 0x3210 in hex corresponds to the binary sequence 0011 0010 0001 0000. This is often seen in memory addresses, color codes (like RGB values), and data representation.