Why is hexadecimal useful in computing?

Why don't we use a computing language with more than 2 distinct states?

• If you look at the english alphabet each bit can have one of 26 distinct states. The binary language only has 2 distinct states. The computing hardware is designed to compute with 2 distinct states. But could we design hardware to determine between 3 or more distinct states. Like for example different charge ratios? I hear that quantum computation has 3 states but is very complex to get working. Why not design a simpler computing hardware to differentiate and store bits with 3 or more distinct states? Would this provide any advantage? You would be able to transfer information with less bits. This because N bits has more possibilities with additional distinct states.

• Answer:

  Electricity has only two distinct states (on - off). Logic gates in computers and other devices which controls data flow and information processing determine the state of the input based on its voltage. Typically, if it's 5V, it's true, if it's 0V, it's false. Another reason is that Boolean logic shows simple evaluating system. If you use 10 different states so there are, say, true, false, somewhat true, somewhat false, in between, and so on. People don't evaluate statement using Boolean logic in real life, but in computing world, Boolean logic is more than enough. The only field you may need more complex logic is in AI (Artificial Intelligence). For example, you're going to build a school management program: so you say if the student grades is higher than 95% write A+ else if it's higher than 90% write A. Here you used (if, else) - (and, or). You only want to check if it's true that his grade is higher than N or not. Why you would use other states. On the other hand, Turing test in AI cannot be solved using this logic. You and a computer are given a question, of course normal people can generate uncountable answers even if it's yes/no question. To illustrate, "is this T-shirt red?" you may answer, it's somewhat near to red, it's mix between blue and red, it has some lines red and some not, etc. Computer vision may return all colors, or solve the problem using percentage or analyze the formal distribution of colors.