I need a definition of analog/digital that I can understand.No math no science no voltage or amps. Simple.?

Question

I need to compare analog music recording with digital, and I can't find a simple answer for either. I think of analog as a clock with hands that go around, and give an approximate time or your gas tank that says half a tank, or empty. Digital I think of a clock that says 9:10:30, or a gas tank that says you have 5.2 gallons of gas in your tank. How does tv, or recording fit into my understanding. Or am I way off base?

Answer 1

For music recording; analog means that the first storage copy of the recording would be on vinyl disk or reel tape. Any analog copies of the original (the 1st generation) will not be exact copies but "analog" of it, that is to say it can be 90% of the original and 10% junk. Another analog copy of that copy will be 90% of that. So at the end of the day, after the nth generation copy, you are left with basically junk. The value of analog copies is based on which generation copy you have to the original truth. An analog of the above example (in other word an analogy or inexact copy/example) would be that the original Bible is the word of God. Subsequent versions are analog copies of the word of God. You get the point, so the more removed versions would tend to have more junk. Which is why different religions based on the word of God conflicts and messes up the world. This analog example is of course not exact, so it contains junk, so you can take it or leave it.



Digital is different in that copies are exact. The nth digital generation copy will be exactly the same as the original truth. However there can be errors (ahh to error is to human). If at anytime an error creeps in during the copy, then the whole thing can be junk or large blocks can be junk. You can inter-mix analog copies an then do a few digital copies and then go back to analog copies. When this happens, then there can be large blocks that are junk so it gets dropped or some inventive person can re-write that block. You can sort of see what happened with the analog example of the Bible, where there were analog copies and digital copies inter-mixed.



So back to the music recordings. Prior to digital technology, we were never able to make exact copies of the truth so the recording industry didn't really mind. The recording industry, being the devil, became very frightened now that we can propagate the truth of the original word of ....

Answer 2

analog audio is a reproduction of the waves/vibrations/sound, in a way that gets a nearly direct conversion from a physical form [vinyl record] into acoustic [needle->preamp->amp->speakers]



digital audio is a mathematical/numeric representation, where the reproduction is 'digitized' and turned into a stream of numbers that represents what the waves/vibrations/sound 'looks like' to the recording/playback system.



If you have a vinyl record, take a look at it with a magnifying glass...you'll see that it is little wavy lines. those wavy lines are the tracks that the needle follows, and are the exact musical copy of the audio track you hear. in fact, you can sometimes run a turntable with the amp shut OFF and hear the music from the needle vibrations alone



if you could examine the bitstream that the digital music was made of, you'd see numbers in binary format [ones/zeroes] that represent the music at any instant, relative to the datum [reference] signal from which the digital signal is quantized.



if you could straighten out the tracks on the vinyl record, and put them next to a graph of the bitstream, and match up the start/end of the music [synchronize the signals] you'd see a near identical copy, save for the parts of the digitized music that has to do with digital track information, such as bitrate, sync, CDC, track number, etc.

Answer 3

It's very difficult to give a good insight into analogue vs digital techniques in a few sentences.



Perhaps this might help as a start.



An analogue signal is a continuously varying one, i.e. its (voltage) value changes with the amplitude and frequency of the sound (or vision) signal it represents. It is analogous to the sound - hence the word analogue.



A digital signal, on the other hand, represents the original sound or vision with a series of short periods of a (fixed) voltage or the absence of a voltage, called bits. A bit, therefore, can be either a voltage or the absence of a voltage, and will be termed a logic 1 or a logic 0 respectively.



It is pointless to continue .... where would I stop?



Search the internet for analogue vs digital (although I expect Google in its "wisdom" will ask you if you meant "analog".)

Answer 4

A couple reasons I think science is more relevant than the arts: 1. Industry is far more science based than humanity based. You hear people talk about oil, alternative fuels, global warming, macbooks, iphones, intel processors, etc. The computer you are using now is a marvel of science and engineering. Think about medicine, saving lives, curing diseases, new medicines, therapies, etc. Science can solve some of the most important problems on the planet that require attention. 2. It's easier to feed a family on science because there are more plentiful jobs due to the drive and demand (see number 1). If I could paint pictures, dance, sing, and write literature for a living I would but that isn't going to put food on the table at the end of the day.

Answer 5

You are correct in your thinking in analog we can assume any value ( perhaps in a range) whereas digital can only have discrete values.



In terms of music recording we used to have a lot of cassette tape recordings and vinyl records. These were analog, for example the grove in a record could vary continuously in depth. In the case of a CD the recording is digital there are discrete values of amplitude.

Answer 6

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Anyone who puts down another field is either inept in it and thus threatened by their lack of knowledge or simply are too narrow minded to see the benefit and advantages of all fields. I may not like math or science, but I appreciate its value and understand its benefits. I would never put the field down. Those who put down anthropology, history, literature, etc. have no appreciation for the search of knowledge and prefer to live their lives by only seeing the world through the lenses of their field. A sad sad person, if you ask me. EDIT-- Humanities and Social Sciences can be just as difficult as any hard science. The problem is that the human element often throws off any equation, so a great deal of research and method must go into these fields. What people fail to realize is that it may be easier to fool the common person in social sciences, but not the scholar in them. Only the best social scientists can progress and there is a rigorous method that must be followed in these studies. "Qualitative and quantitative research and method" still sends chills of horror down my spine. EDIT--Jon, there are poor scientists or people in every field. That does not mean the majority are not looking for knowledge. Tell that to the anthropologist who spends hours in the field, or the historian that labors years over texts. It is not over status but to grasp at something new and exciting. And as if science doesn't have these people as well? Always looking for the new equation so that he/she can be the next Einstein or Newton? EDIT-- Jon, have you even ever LOOKED into the method and research for history? Or archeology, even? It is very difficult, time consuming, and methodological. Perhaps it is different that hard science, but that doesn't make it of any less value. EDIT--If that's true, then why does certain aspects of human behavior change depending on era and culture? EDIT--You work at a university? As a professor then? A professor of so many studies that you understand the workings of them all? Now THAT would be an accomplishment, seeing as how any professor worth his/her salt will be the first to admit that while they're an expert in their own field, they can not possibly understand or fully grasp the entirety of many other fields. EDIT--I'm not sure what social science you're talking about, because in my experience there IS a scientific method followed and one MUST follow said method in order to be taken seriously. There are different methods, of course (like I said, the differences in qualitative and quantitate, for one broad example). It makes me wonder how much you understand in the field seeing as how even though I took limited classes in these methods (they're not the type of methods one uses in history) even I know about them. I'm not saying that humanities or social sciences are MORE important than hard science--but that they are ALL important to have a full, well rounded understanding of the world around us. Quite simply, there are some things that hard science can not answer. For that there are other fields. And in other fields there are only things that hard science can answer. We all work off of one another. EDIT--sorry, went to bed. You had a class to teach, I had a class to attend. As for humans are animals, this true to a degree but there is a great rift between simply animal and simply human. Humans have the basis physical needs of animals, but after that, the differences are too vast to simply list. Hard science can and does focus on these needs, but many social sciences or humanities go into depth in the areas that are not basis animalistic needs and what makes us uniquely human as opposed to simple animals. And that is one of the reasons social sciences are needed. To call us only animals is to limit the great wealth of capability, reason, history and culture of humans. Okay, as far as scientific mode for social sciences. Grrr, you're really going to make me go into this, aren't you. So, the very basics: There are two major schools of science in social sciences--qualitative (words) and quantitative (numbers). These are relatively two different methods for collecting data and are often at odds with each other. It is usually broken down into these methods: The generation of models, theories and hypotheses The development of instruments and methods for measurement Experimental control and manipulation of variables Collection of empirical data Modeling and analysis of data Evaluation of results Yet each group is broken down into further models and groups, such as the process of developing a valid instrument, how data is collected, the amount of control groups, the validity of data, the concern of contaminated data and outside effects on data, etc. There is so much process its painful. I would go into it, but it takes semesters to really learn the process of qualitative/quantitative research and methods. I suggest you take a class or two in it and then you'll fully understand the scientific process in some of the social science research instead of simply insulting it.