From computers and machinery to memories and nerve firings in humans and other animals, both use the flow of electricity to send, receive and read information/data. Why is that and what is it about electricity that does it? Like why not something else like sound or heat or radiation or something?
In: Biology
Data or control signals could be in some other form, but electricity is useful for a number of reasons. First, it travels at basically the speed of light. Sound travels a great deal slower. (It is difficult to even compare the two, but imagine a race between a snail and a fighter jet.) Heat is even slower.
“Radiation” is a very broad category, but there are two basic types. One is the kind with alpha/beta/gamma particles, and is given off by radioactive elements, like Plutonium or Uranium. The other is **electro**magnetic radiation. This kind includes light, radio waves (including WiFi and cellular signals), and television signals that go up to satellites and back down to provide satellite television (and television feeds to cable television as well). Either of these could be used instead of electricity (and are in the case of wireless transmissions of data) but could not be used by the human body or animals, since they would require a source of radioactive isotopes or incredibly complex biological equipment to generate the radiation.
Compared to all that, electricity is a good compromise that is extremely fast, can be conducted through the body and through the world in “both” directions, and can be generated by chemical reactions without the need for other complex physical equipment. (A neat experiment, since this is ELI5, is to make a potato or lemon battery. All it needs is the potato/lemon and two different kinds of metal.)
On a side note, as mentioned we do use electricity and electromagnetic radiation, in the form of radio waves, to transmit data. We also use light, in the form of fiber optic cables. Here is something interesting about the history of it though. We started out a long time ago, using lights to communicate long distances. Lighthouses would warn ships about rocky coasts, and people could light a light or start a fire to indicate something. (If you are American, you may know the story of Paul Revere, who instructed an ally to use lanterns to indicate the method the British were approaching Boston.) Then, we used with wires (usually copper) to carry signals, first with Morse code, and later with actual voices via telephone. That worked for a long time, but was difficult to use for extremely long distances. Directional radio signals were a good way to get signals across difficult terrain, and once communication satellites were put in orbit, those could be used as well. Then, at the dawn of the internet, we went all the way back to using light to communicate with fiber optics! (Fiber optics can carry more data than traditional copper wires or radio communications, are less susceptible to interference, and the cables are less heavy, since the core is a type of glass instead of copper.)
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