Comment on Bit flips: How cosmic rays grounded a fleet of aircraft

• Devial@discuss.online ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Read that sentence again. They didn’t say bits represent 0s and 1s, they said bits are represented BY 0s and 1s, which is entirely correct.

  Physicsly speaking, in a modern silicon based PC, bits are the presence or absence of electrons in an electron well. That presence or absence is often represented by binary numbers, because it makes the math easy, though it can also be represented in other ways, such as “HI” and “LO”.

  The statement from the article is entirely correct.

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  • Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    A bit isn’t represented by a one or a zero, that’s nonsense. A bit can take the state of a one or a zero and is represented in various ways in digital circuitry.

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    • Devial@discuss.online ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      A bit IS represented by one or zero. A bit can take the state of charged or not charged. That’s what a bit physically is. In low level code, those states are represented by binary numbers.

      Or do you think there’s a actual physical numbers 0 and 1 floating around in your RAM ?

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      • phutatorius@lemmy.zip ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        those states are represented by binary numbers.

        The states represent binary numbers, not the other way around.

        www.britannica.com/technology/bit-communications

        A bit is a binary digit. That’s what “bit” is an abbreviation for. That is, it’s either a 1 or a 0. It’s a logical thing, not a physical thing. It’s a unit of information.

        The embodiment of that bit is the physical state of a certain tiny, addressable chunk of silicon. And there could be any of several other embodiments: the position of toggle switches, chalk marks on a board, pits on a metallic surface in a DVD, voltage in a wire at a particular time. The particular embodiment is an engineering choice that is distinct from the information itself.

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