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Base 3 numeral system

A ternary '/t//ɜr//n//ər//i/ numeral system (also called base 3 or trinary) has three as its base. Analogous to a bit, a ternary digit is a trit (trinary digit). One trit is equivalent to log2 3 (about 1.58496) bits of information. Although ternary most often refers to a system in which the three digits are all non–negative numbers; specifically , , and , the adjective also lends its name to the balanced ternary system; comprising the digits −1, 0 and +1, used in comparison logic and ternary computers.

Nonary (base 9, each digit is two ternary digits) or septemvigesimal (base 27, each digit is three ternary digits) can be used for compact representation of ternary, similar to how octal and hexadecimal systems are used in place of binary.

In certain analog logic, the state of the circuit is often expressed ternary. This is most commonly seen in CMOS circuits, and also in transistor–transistor logic with totem pole output. The output is said to either be low (grounded), high, or open (high Z). In this configuration the output of the circuit is actually not connected to any voltage reference at all. Where the signal is usually grounded to a certain reference, or at a certain voltage level, the state is said to be high impedance because it is open and serves its own reference. Thus, the actual voltage level is sometimes unpredictable. A rare "ternary point" in common use is for defensive statistics in American baseball (usually just for pitchers), to denote fractional parts of an inning. Since the team on offense is allowed three outs, each out is considered one third of a defensive inning and is denoted as .1. For example, if a player pitched all of the 4th, 5th and 6th innings, plus achieving 2 outs in the 7th inning, his innings pitched column for that game would be listed as 3.2, the equivalent of 3 2/3 (which is sometimes used as an alternative by some record keepers). In this usage, only the fractional part of the number is written in ternary form. Ternary numbers can be used to convey self similar structures like the Sierpinski triangle or the Cantor set conveniently. Additionally, it turns out that the ternary representation is useful for defining the Cantor set and related point sets, because of the way the Cantor set is constructed. The Cantor set consists of the points from 0 to 1 that have a ternary expression that does not contain any instance of the digit 1.