What is "least significant bit"

n. (context computing English) The bit that represents the smallest fraction of a value, its position depending on the endianness of the system.

In computing, the least significant bit (LSB) is the bit position in a binary integer giving the units value, that is, determining whether the number is even or odd. The LSB is sometimes referred to as the right-most bit, due to the convention in positional notation of writing less significant digits farther to the right. It is analogous to the least significant digit of a decimal integer, which is the digit in the ones (right-most) position.

It is common to assign each bit a position number, ranging from zero to N-1, where N is the number of bits in the binary representation used. Normally, this is simply the exponent for the corresponding bit weight in base-2 (such as in 2³¹..2⁰). Although a few CPU manufacturers assign bit numbers the opposite way (which is not the same as different endianness), the term least significant bit itself remains unambiguous as an alias for the unit bit.

By extension, the least significant bits (plural) are the bits of the number closest to, and including, the LSB.

The least significant bits have the useful property of changing rapidly if the number changes even slightly. For example, if 1 (binary 00000001) is added to 3 (binary 00000011), the result will be 4 (binary 00000100) and three of the least significant bits will change (011 to 100). By contrast, the three most significant bits (MSBs) stay unchanged (000 to 000).

Least significant bits are frequently employed in pseudorandom number generators, hash functions and checksums.