Ok, so I know that the alphabet of computers consists of only two symbols, or states: zero and one.
I also seem to understand how computers count beyond one even though they don’t have symbols for anything above one.
What I do NOT understand is how a computer knows* that a particular string of ones and zeros refers to a number, or a letter, or a pixel, or an RGB color, and all the other types of data that computers are able to render.
*EDIT: A lot of you guys hang up on the word “know”, emphasing that a computer does not know anything. Of course, I do not attribute any real awareness or understanding to a computer. I’m using the verb “know” only figuratively, folks ;).
I think that somewhere under the hood there must be a physical element–like a table, a maze, a system of levers, a punchcard, etc.–that breaks up the single, continuous stream of ones and zeros into rivulets and routes them into–for lack of a better word–different tunnels? One for letters, another for numbers, yet another for pixels, and so on?
I can’t make do with just the information that computers speak in ones and zeros because it’s like dumbing down the process human communication to the mere fact of relying on an alphabet.
In: 264
In the simplest possible terms, and referring only to meaning (which was your question), it’s exactly the same principle that’s in play in our alphabet.
How do the letters in the alphabet actually mean something?
* They don’t really, on their own
* But, if you put them in combinations, specific combinations of letters make words and concepts
* In the same way, for computers combinations of 1s and 0s make meanings, it just takes more of them (since you only have two, you don’t have as many possible distinct combinations for a given length of digits, so you need to add more digits to make space for more meanings)
As far as how they “know,” if you remember that 0 and 1 are really “electricity on this wire off” or “electricity on this wire on,” there’s a cool trick going on:
* The 0s and 1s can both mean something and *do* something (because electricity can *do* things) at the same time
* Through clever design, they’re basically wired up in such a way that this can be taken advantage of—imagine if letters in our alphabet were able to do work (like the electricity of the 0s and 1s is able to do work)
* You could build a dictionary using letters that would be able to “do things” like making use of its own definitions to accomplish things
* Like interpreting and acting on (“knowing”) these definitions
This is a VERRRY high-level explanation, but ELI5 basically demands that.
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