#Analogue Versus #Digital
There are two basic ways of representing the numerical values of the various physical quantities withwhich we constantly deal in our day-to-day lives. One of the ways, referred to as analogue, is to
express the numerical value of the quantity as a continuous range of values between the two expected
extreme values. For example, the temperature of an oven settable anywhere from 0 to 100 C may be
measured to be 65 C or 64.96 C or 64.958 C or even 64.9579 C and so on, depending upon the
accuracy of the measuring instrument.
Similarly, voltage across a certain component in an electronic circuit may be measured as 6.5 V or 6.49 V or 6.487 V or 6.4869 V. The underlying concept in this mode of representation is that variation in the numerical value of the quantity is continuous and could have any of the infinite theoretically possible values between the two extremes.
The other possible way, referred to as digital, represents the numerical value of the quantity in steps
of discrete values. The numerical values are mostly represented using binary numbers. For example,
the temperature of the oven may be represented in steps of 1C as 64 C, 65 C, 66 C and so on.
To summarize, while an analogue representation gives a continuous output, a digital representation
produces a discrete output. Analogue systems contain devices that process or work on various physical quantities represented in analogue form.
Digital systems contain devices that process the physical quantities represented in digital form.
