Even though these words are used commonly, not many people know what they mean, so define the words analouge and digital for us please (and try not use a dictionary). Try and see if YOU know what the words mean
analogue: how natural sounds really are. constantly changing continuous waves. digital: analogue sound gets sampled at a certain rate and turned into numerical data. how higher the sampling rate, how higher the fidelity to the original sound wave.
Wrong, SuAside, the concepts are much more general. Analogue is continuous, like a gliding scale. Digital, however, is non-continuous, the set {1,2,3,4,5,6,7} is digital, for instance. Digital is also often used to denote something in an electronic form.
Ehh....no, we're not. Yours is still much too specific, and only talks about a conversion, while digital can also exist by itself. Also, you did enter the word sound, and considering the fact that I said that you were limiting it way too much, your last remark was quite....useless.
When I say "mechanical", I'm implying anything but digital. And how do you get "more general" than what I just said?
Easily. By stating what I first said. Analogue is anything continuous, while digital is anything continuous. You, however, made a distinction and said that analogue is mechanical (weird word to use in this context), and that digital is "binary". Since binary means two-valued, this is completely false. The set {1,2,3,4,5,6,7} is non-continous, and hence digital, but it isn't binary.
This is what I've always thought the two meant. Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong. Analog: Things being measured in the strength of electrical signals. AM. Every copy you make of an analog signal is of less quality than the original because analog contains a lot of "static". Digital: When read, the signal is translated into a bunch of 1's and 0's. Copies are perfect because the every 1 and 0 are copied, making a perfect copy.
I mean binary in the sense that it is driven by electronical data in binary code. Analog would be anything but that (ie, mechanical in some sense, which includes radiowaves). Is that really so wrong as a general definition?
Digital - Resembling/relating to a digit (human finger or toe). Analogue - Something that is similar (analogous) to something else.
I've heard some people say that analog can be interpreted as what occurs in nature, while digital is the manipulation of natural occurences to represent an abstract. (ones or zeros)
I will explain it with the example of a curve line. Analog: It is continuous. Why? because between to points of a curve there are other infinite numbers of points. Imagine a continuous curve. Digital: It ir run by 0 or 1, the number of points in a digital curve line are finite, and while more points are specified in the curve the closer it gets to look like an analog curve. I have been studying it, I have exam in two days and this is included in it.
The curve stuff reminds me of quantum theory. I hadn't thought of the term digital generally in terms of sets, but rather for specific cases. A digital clock has changing numbers displayed on it. The analogue clock is mechanical and has hands instead. Digital, specifically in communications and computing refers to binary, with either 0 or 1. Having only two finite values, is it used to stop EM interference for communications (FM also reduces 'noise' problems) and store all information according to a set of predetermined rules. A digital waveform either has either a straight spike or no signal. Analogue has a 'real' waveform, with many different variations in wavelength and amplitude. Digital devices can convert analogue signals into digital information.
