Computer components are made out of raw materials, like silicon and copper. How does something physical like that create and use things we can’t “see”, like data (0s and 1s)?
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Computers aren’t really storing or computing numbers like 0 and 1 if you get to the bottom of it. They are computing/storing states of current/voltage which can be expressed in two states (on or off; current or no current; high voltage or low voltage; …. 0 or 1).
In practice there are various ways to compute or store this data. CPUs consist of billions of tiny transistors. A transistor is nothing more than an electrical switch, meaning that if the transistor is activated it will let a current flow and if the transistor is deactivated there will be no current. So by very intelligently combining transistors you can create some logic and if you combine millions or billions of them you can create a system that can compute complex operations. All of this basically just by switching current on/off.
Now data can be saved in similar ways. One example would be magnets. A magnet has it’s two poles: north and south. You could build a system that detects which direction a magnet is facing. Is north or south facing you? Using one magnet you can store one binary digits worth of data (0 or 1). If you combine a lot of those magnets and check their state (north or south to you) and you can store a lot more data this way in binary.
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