Or at least “explain it like I am an 8th grader.” I am a middle school science teacher and am struggling with explaining these concepts in a simplified way that my students can understand. They have some prior knowledge about waves and how they travel. I appreciate any help you can provide!
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This won’t be much help to you, but The basic confusion comes from the fact that there is no natural distinction between the two.
An analog signal is a physical phenomenon on a continuum, like voltage, which has been assigned meaning by a human. E.g. The correspondence between fuel.level in a gastank, And The voltage produced by the level sensor in the tank.
It is “Digital” when a human divides the continuous range of possibilities into three (or more) parts. E.g. In a 5 volt system, voltages between 0 and 1 volt are called “low” and between 4 and 5 volts are called “high”. Voltages between 1 and 4 volts have no meaning.
Low and High are often interpreted as the binary numbers 0 and 1, because that interpretation allows for some very nifty circuits to be built that can do arithmetic and (with more human interpretation) symbolic calculations.
But don’t lose sight of the fact that, fundamentally, it’s all analog, just with elaborate, human-designed, interpretations.
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