Newbie -- bitwise shifts

[Jp Calderone]

On Wed, Feb 04, 2004 at 01:24:00PM -0800, gbblob wrote:
> Can someone please explain to me why left shits are equivalent to
> multiplication and right shifts equivalent to devision?  This seems
> backwards to me.
> 
> e.g.
> 
> 15 is binary 1111
> if I shift this left 2 bits I get 11
> 
> however in Python 15<<2 = 60 ?!

    >>> from binary import binary
    >>> binary(15)
    '1111'
    >>> binary(15<<2)
    '111100'
    >>> binary(15>>2)
    '11'

  Jp