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#1: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2021-05-08T08:42:58Z (over 3 years ago)
Why is -1 needed to get 65,535 from a 2^16 binary power calculation?
It was stated in the Wikipedia article [65,535](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/65,535):

> 65535 occurs frequently in the field of computing because it is `2^16-1` (one less than 2 to the 16th power), which is the highest number that can be represented by an unsigned 16-bit binary number.

I didn't understand from this passage why is the `-1` needed to get the number 65,535 from the power operation.