Beyond Zero and One (Andrew Smart) / quote 56 of 171
What 32-bit machines mean
You can begin to see why we refer to 64- and 32-bit machines to describe or classify computers—this corresponds naturally to the base two numbers. A 32-bit machine uses 32 bits to identify each address in its memory. This can also refer to the set of wires that connects the components within the computer like the CPU and the memory, called the bus. A 32-bit bus can transmit 32 bits in parallel. 32 bits might not sound like much until you note that 32 bits means that 232 possible values can be represented, which are 4,294,967,295 possible values. This would mean that we need 32 columns, each set to one or zero, to represent all these values in binary.