I made a free measurement game called “Finger Hz” — built just for fun.
It started with a simple question: “If my fingers had to mimic a CPU, just how slow would they be?” You count in binary on your fingers, and the game calculates your “finger clock frequency” in Hz (Hertz) based on the time it takes.
At the end, it compares your speed to a smartphone’s CPU clock and shows you how many billion times slower you are than the iPhone 16 Pro.
How Finger Hz Came to Be
Back in high school, a friend from the computer club taught me how to count in binary on my fingers. Recently, my kid came home after a computer-related class, and it all came rushing back to me. I showed them the binary finger trick — and we both thought, “wait, this could actually be a game!” So here we are.
One thing that genuinely surprised me (even now): with just one hand, you can count all the way up to 31 in binary. That’s remarkable! Who even came up with such an efficient way to represent numbers?
Turns out it was Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz — a 17th-century German philosopher and mathematician. His binary number system became the very foundation of modern computing.
This game lets you feel how a computer works with your own hands. Give it a try!
(Note: the Hz value here is a simplified measure, not a strict CPU clock equivalent — but hey, it’s a game!)
What Is Binary Finger Counting?
The number system we use every day — decimal — uses 10 digits (0–9). Binary uses only 0 and 1, and it’s the fundamental language of computers.
By mapping a bent finger to 0 and an extended finger to 1, just 5 fingers can represent every number from 0 to 31.
- Thumb = 2⁰ = 1
- Index finger = 2¹ = 2
- Middle finger = 2² = 4
- Ring finger = 2³ = 8
- Pinky = 2⁴ = 16
These combinations let you represent any number from 0 to 31 (= 2⁵ − 1). For example, to show “6,” raise your index finger (2) and middle finger (4) while keeping the rest folded.
How to Play
It’s simple:
- Open the page and press Start
- Use your fingers to count upward in binary
- Answer each question as fast as you can
- See your Finger Hz and how it stacks up against a smartphone CPU
An on-screen illustration shows which fingers to raise for each number, so you don’t need to memorize binary in advance. Start slowly with the guide — then try to speed up!
What Is Hz? How Does It Compare to a CPU?
Hz (Hertz) measures how many operations something can perform per second. A CPU’s “clock frequency” is expressed the same way.
For example, the Apple A18 Pro in the iPhone 16 Pro runs at around 4 GHz — that’s 4 billion cycles per second.
A human counting one binary step with their fingers takes at least a few seconds. Do the math, and you’re looking at being tens of billions to hundreds of billions of times slower than a CPU.
“You already know it intellectually — but seeing the actual number still hits different.” That’s the experience this game is going for.
Japanese Version Available
The game also supports Japanese. Click the JA button in the top right corner, or remove ?lang=en from the URL to switch.
Wrapping Up
Finger Hz is a tiny game the yamani team built because we thought “learning binary with your body is actually fun.” It has nothing to do with tableware (ha!) — but we hope it can be a fun mental break, or a small spark of curiosity about how computers work.
Counting in binary on your fingers gives you a tiny glimpse into how a computer thinks. Why not give it a shot?
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