How can software make physical changes happen?

711 views

I’ve been thinking a lot about software and how it affects hardware. How is it that software, that runs on code, or some computer language, can affect the physical properties of the computer? For example what has to happen for a phone to physically shut down after pressing the shutdown button on a touch screen? Or how can it be that by pressing a button in a software, a physical movement can be made on an object? Going deeper, how can it be that a button press, or a touch can affect the state of the transistors?
This reminds me of the problem of consciousness, where in a computer a software is like the mind and that cannot phisically connect to the body.

In: 3

13 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Basically, through electromagnetism. The simplest way to visualize it is that there are lots of tiny little electromagnets that can engage or disengage tiny switches. Tiny switches can control bigger switches, so on and so forth.

You are viewing 1 out of 13 answers, click here to view all answers.