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Two’s Complement

Two’s complement is a way to represent signed integers in binary so that addition, subtraction, and negation can use the same binary arithmetic rules.

How it works:

  • The most significant bit (MSB) is the sign bit: 0 for positive, 1 for negative.
  • Negative numbers are stored by inverting all bits of the number and adding 1.

Example:

8-bit: 00000010 = 2
Invert: 11111101
+1: 11111110 = -2

Why Java uses it:

  • Simpler CPU operations
  • Consistent arithmetic rules
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