I learned this in class recently. I will try to help you.
Let's say I want to convert (1011)2 into base 10. By the way, the subscript denotes the base of that number. In this case, I will convert from binary to decimal.
Since this number is in base 2, the nth digit represents (n-1) power of 2 of the number.
In the example I created, (1011)2=1∗23+0∗22+1∗21+1∗20(1011)2=8+2+1(1011)2=11. In base 10, the subscript is usually omitted.
What if I wanted to convert from base 10 to binary? Let's use 11 as our example. Well, here is one method to use. Binary, once again, is base 2. I can use the following iterative formula.
11=bq0+r011=2q0+r011=2∗5+1 where b is the base, q is the largest multiple without exceeding 11, and r is the whole number remainder.
Now, replace the 11 with q_0 and do this process iteratively until q_i = 0.
11=2∗5+15=2∗2+12=2∗1+01=2∗0+1
Now that q_i equals 0, we read the remainders we got backwards, which gives us our answer: 1011.
I hope this made sense to you.