The solution he came up with is to use the Python interpreter as a binary math aide. We knew that you could use Python to convert between decimal, hexadecimal, and binary.

When decimal numbers are within the range of 0 to 9, their binary and BCD representations are identical, requiring only four bits (0000 to 1001).

How would I convert that to an actual num? If I use int (), Python assumes decimal and creates a number that's much, much bigger (in the above example, it would return the # 101101 instead of 45).