What is the difference between analog and digital?

Question

what did we use them both for?

Answer 1

I take it you need this for GCSE Physics =)

Well here is everything you will need to know :
Analogue:
These have a value between +1 and-1 and are send via a transverse wave. This form of a signal can be interfered with by diffraction and it is hard to regain the orignal signal to its full quality.

This is what he two wave signals look like:
http://www.webbasedprogramming.com/Tricks-of-the-Java-Programming-Gurus/f4-1.gif

Analogue is the top one and Digital is the bottom

Digital:
These have a value of 1 or 0 ( they use binary) and have a simple signal style (use above link). If interfered with you can easily regain the signal and the information.
Digital signals also use MULTIPLEXING (Need to know this) which means you can layer more than one signal down the same line.
So you can have say 5 telephone calls layer upon one another down one line opposed to one telephone call with a analogue signal.

Hope this helps :)

Answer 2

Digital means that you're dealing with discrete units, while analog means you're dealing with a continuous range.

Eggs, for instance, are digital. You can go out to the henhouse and get 5 eggs or 6 eggs, but you'll never come back with something inbetween.

Milk, on the other hand, is analog. You might milk the cow and end up with 3.72 gallons, but it's actually an *estimate* as to how much you got, because milk is a continuous flow.

One of the biggest single advantages of digital seems to be that it allows for an *exact* copy. When you make an analog copy, it's not exactly the same as the original.

On the other hand, digital is "choppy". Back when you had woodburning stoves in the kitchen, the fire was on one end (typically the right) and there was a hot water reservoir at the other end, and you had a whole range of temperatures available. If your potatoes were cooking too fast, you simply would slide the skillet a little to the left.

You can adjust a gas flame under a skillet, but that doesn't change the temperature the gas burns at. Turning it down produces a smaller flame of the same temperature - so the taters in the *center* of the skillet continue to burn, while the taters on the *outside* of the skillet remain raw.

You can adjust an electric calrod to different temperatures, but although the switch appears to be infinitely variable, it actually only has about 100 positions at which it can be set.

Vinyl records are analog, and as such, offer a richer sound than possible using the sampling techniques required to make a digital recording. Most people cannot hear the difference - but many people can.

One of the reasons for switching from analog TV to digital TV is that sharper clearer broadcasts will be available using much less of the broadcast spectrum, allowing the old spectrum to be used, in part, for public safety purposes. When the first World Trade Tower collapsed, firemen and other rescue workers inside the other tower couldn't be warned to get out because collapse was imminent; the radios simply couldn't penetrate the buildings. The new spectrum being assigned for public safety radios is more capable of penetrating through buildings.

In addition, other extra spectrum being freed up will be auctioned off, bringing in a lot of money to the government.

Answer 3

In the context of your question an analog signal is an electromagnetic wave, think radio waves or even waves in the sea. Until the advent of digital communication this how TVs radios and telephones worked. The sound you get from your stereo is an analog sound wave, even if the input signal is digital. So what is a digital signal? Put simply it is 0 or 1 i.e. on or off. You could say that a light switch is digital. It's either on or off. It is called binary code, eg 1010 is decimal 10.. So the signal you get through your broadband or TV is in essence a stream of 0's and 1's. Clever ain't it.

Answer 4

Analogue describes a value accurately, look at the hour hand on a normal clockwork clock, at half past the hour it is halfway between the two hours. The hours display on a digital clock will always show the last complete hour. Similarly, a sun-dial is analogue.
Currently, Music CD's are a good example of digital, whereas Vynil records or music cassette tapes are anaologue. The 'Purist' audiophile prefers analogue, because it is a truer representation, wheras digital is in the form of steps.
Analogue processing is "Real Time" and very fast, whereas digital can be lagging and slower.

Answer 5

Digital is based on two numbers 0 and 1. Analog isn't

Answer 6

It depends what you mean by analog and digital?Do you mean analog and digital sound?

I make music on my computer and i have a selection of soft synthesisers that i use to make the music some are analog and some are digital.Analog sound is still used in all types of music because its produces unique sounds that cant be copied using digital.For example surround sound is digital sound,analog cant have surround sound because it isnt digital.Its hard to explain the difference if you havent heard what analog and digital sound like when making music.

Answer 7

Digital means that any measurement or value is converted into a number in binary format, (i.e.on or off, 1 or 0).
Digital computers talk in this language, hence it's almost universal use.

Analogue means measurements taken in the old fashioned way, e.g 5.67 metres or 7.6 volts. The value can be anywhere between zero and plus or minus infinity. Some old fashioned computers were analogue, e.g. the WWII American bomb aiming computer. They used servos and motors, gears, pulleys, etc.

In TV, an analogue transmission uses constantly changing voltage values to depict a picture. This uses up a lot of frequency space (bandwidth). In digital TV they quantify the picture as a binary number stream. Using clever coding techniques many TV channels can be mixed up together and yet still use the old amount of space one old analogue TV channel did.

When we all go to digital TV the spare frequency space or spectrum can then be sold off by the Government for easy bucks.

Answer 8

Analogue is simply the process of comparing with known physical laws and formulae. For example the first analogue computer was actually mechanical, comprising cogs and wheels a little like a syncromesh gearbox in a car. Whereas digital analysis or computers employ a method of taking little slices of the phenomena and then adding it all up to gain the overall picture of what is happening. These little bits are known in electronic parlance as bytes. It is utilising a mathematical system of calculus in fractions of seconds at any moment in time. Collectively is provides a simulation of the process you are trying to study. The speed factor is governed by how many bytes per second the machine can carry at any one time pro rata.

Answer 9

Analogue is based on continuous flows of information, and which account for natural variations in sound. Old vinyl records sometimes sound better played on a high quality turntable compared to Compact Discs because of this more natural fuller sound. Digital sound is made up of 'blocks' or particles and don't have the natural ebbs and flows of sound.

It may be worth comparing a long play record with a CD, or DAB broadcasts with the equivalent coming through a vintage valve radio which would have used analogue technlogy.

Older Compacts Discs will have AAD, ADD, or DDD on the label somewhere: A for Analogue, D for Digital, in the recording, transfer and mastering.

It is a little like comparing a graph made of blocks with one showing more smoother curves.

Answer 10

difference analog digital