In a recent post on Digg.com about Porsche’s new $150,000 (yes, that’s currently € 123 183.05!) “digital” watch, people began immediately betraying their ontological position on the constitution of the universe, and I thought the discussion was so interesting, I’d like to tell you about it:
rm999 said,
Digital means it shows digits, which is a discrete output vs a continuous analog watch. It’s kind of cool - it reminds you that everything in this world is analog at its core - even computers are created with analog voltages and chemical reactions.
To which breakneckridge responded,
I have to disagree, everything is digital at its core. Once you get down to the quantum level, electrons can have only certain energy levels and do not exist in a continuous band of possibilities. But I’m just playing devils advocate because in truth calling something digital or analog is really a synthetic distinction that humans came up with to try to describe the world which never really falls into separate categories the way we’d like.
Then, PhysicsTheory (go figure) responded to that thus:
Not to be a nit-picker, but since you brought it up… at the quantum level things are VERY much NOT digital. That is acutally the point, and was one of the major problems Einstein had with the whole thing. You can really only describe the location of subatomic particles with probability functions until you directly observe them, collapsing the probability function. Probability functions are continuous by definition, not discrete. Hence analog would be a more apt analogy.
Cheers!
Interesting, no? Any other ladies and gentlemen knowledgeable about quantum physics care to comment?
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