I see the words "trytes" and "trits" used a lot when discussing IOTA, however neither my browser's autocorrect nor the Oxford English Dictionary know what these words mean.
What are trytes and trits, and what is their purpose in relation to IOTA?
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Related: (Answers the second part of your question. First part might be deemed too general.) Why does IOTA use a ternary number system? – Richard Horrocks Dec 01 '17 at 13:29
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@RichardHorrocks Ah, I had looked but couldn't find any similar questions. Good shout. – James Donnelly Dec 01 '17 at 13:31
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You are probably familiar with Bytes and Bits. (If not: Wikipedia knows)
Since IOTA is not based on binary but trinary/ternary computing, we need different names.
bits, bytes
A bit is a digit in a base 2 number system: either 0 or 1
A byte consists of 8 bits
trits
A trit is a digit in a base 3 number system: either 0, 1 or 2
balanced ternary
IOTA does not use normal ternary but balanced ternary computing. It has some special properties and uses -,0 and + as digits
trytes
A tryte consists of 3 trits. It can be in one of 27 states. In IOTA these states are often named with the (26) uppercase letters ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ and the (+1) number 9.
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2To get a handle on how many trytes are needed to represent an equivalent amount of bytes, I made a calculator for it, which some may find useful: https://laurencetennant.com/iota-tools/ . 27 trytes is roughly equal to 128 bits. – Laurence Dec 01 '17 at 15:59