1 Describe the difference between analogue and digital signals?

severn786

could someone please explain to me the differences between analogue and digital signals and where would you find analogue and digital signals in modern day life and what they could be used for thanks as i am really confused on this subject

steveandel

Homework eh? :rolleyes:

superscaper

Analogue is continuous and digital is discrete steps. Eg bathroom scales with an actual dial is analogue, a number readout is digital.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_signal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_signal

superscaper

steveandel wrote: »

Homework eh? :rolleyes:

Probably due in Monday morning as well. :rolleyes:

severn786

nope just wondered what the difference in the two signals are as always confuses me

Reido

Sounds like something out of the SG Physics Course!

If it is, Use an answer that refers to the way that Analogue can change smoothly, but Digital can only be at 1 or 0.

Analogue would be used with Speaker outputs etc - anything that creates sound, and Digital would be used as, like, umm... Satellite signals and stuff like that?

Hope that helps.

EDIT: Just read your last post - Still, my post may be of some referance? lol

superscaper

severn786 wrote: »

nope just wondered what the difference in the two signals are as always confuses me

Are you still confused? What else would you like to know about them?

A way of thinking about visualising analogue and digital would be something like thinking about a hill (analogue) compared to stairs up and down (digital). You can't have anything smaller than the steps in digital so readings can only be as accurate as the smallest steps (in simplest terms) but with known specific steps it is easier to do complex processing with them. Whereas analogue is infinitely (sort of) detailed, you can always go in between two points, but it is much harder to process analogue signals to manipulate them into something else.

superscaper

Reido wrote: »

If it is, Use an answer that refers to the way that Analogue can change smoothly, but Digital can only be at 1 or 0.

Digital can be any number of steps, binary is a very specific form of digital processing. A digital clock doesn't mean 1's and 0's for example.

ormus

analogue is a like a continuous (in time) sine wave.
digital is like a snapshot taken within a certain time frame. the shorter the time frame the more accurate the signal. (sampling rate).

superscaper

ormus wrote: »

the shorter the time frame the more accurate the signal. (sampling rate).

I suppose from there you could go on about Nyquist-Shannon theory. All depends on how much you want to go into it. You could go on in more and more detail about theories of analogue and digital electronics and information theory etc. I wonder how much the OP actually wants to know on the subject.

severn786

i would just like to know the main differences in the two siginals and what stands them apart from each other, and where they are both used eg i know digtail signials are used within computers as they transmit in binary code, as with analouge they are used down phone lines and used for commicating sounds as well and speech any more help would be greatly helpful