[sdiy] Is everything digital?

[Glen]

At 03:11 PM 5/14/2005 , Bob Weigel wrote:
>
>Heheh.  Yeah it's just that..the charge on an individual electron is 1.6 
>x 10^-19 coulumb....which so SO small...and while if you are talking 
>about two metal sphere's electrostatic charge..well yeah...you add 
>another electron and the charge bumps up a 'digit', neglecing the 
>interspacing effect which is extremely negligable of course in this 
>instance..but still..so is what you are saying so I thought you should 
>know about it :-).

I'm quite aware of the notion that my statement, even if correct, would be
of negligible importance to the design and use of today's typical
electronic circuitry.  :)

I was just wondering if the digital camp could claim "final bragging
rights", by claiming that minuscule discrete charges of uniform individual
intensity add together to create what we consider "voltage". Since the
voltage in that case would be made of discrete elements, the digital camp
could argue that digital circuitry is more "natural" in the sense that it
shared these properties of the signals it was manipulating. Its biggest
limitation in "quality" being its level of quantizing in both magnitude and
time, but still in a sense, a more "natural" approach than analog
circuitry. Perhaps in theory, given enough resolution, everything is
digital. Our analog circuitry might be just a type of "fuzzy logic" (take
that term very loosely.)

Me, I'm not really in the digital camp. I just like to speculate.  ;)

I'm also waiting for Harry to come along, activate his "dumb blonde mode",
and succinctly prove that we've *all* misunderstood the true nature of
"reality".


:)
Glen