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The expression of numerical quantities is something we tend to take for granted. This is both a good and a bad thing in the study of electronics. It is good, in that we're accustomed to the use and manipulation of numbers for the many calculations used in analyzing electronic circuits. On the other hand, the particular system of notation we've been taught from grade school onward is not the system used internally in modern electronic computing devices, and learning any different system of notation requires some re-examination of deeply ingrained assumptions.

First, we have to distinguish the difference between numbers and the symbols we use to represent numbers. A number is a mathematical quantity, usually correlated in electronics to a physical quantity such as voltage, current, or resistance. There are many different types of numbers. Here are just a few types, for example:

Different types of numbers find different application in the physical world. Whole numbers work well for counting discrete objects, such as the number of resistors in a circuit. Integers are needed when negative equivalents of whole numbers are required. Irrational numbers are numbers that cannot be exactly expressed as the ratio of two integers, and the ratio of a perfect circle's circumference to its diameter (π) is a good physical example of this. The non-integer quantities of voltage, current, and resistance that we're used to dealing with in DC circuits can be expressed as real numbers, in either fractional or decimal form. For AC circuit analysis, however, real numbers fail to capture the dual essence of magnitude and phase angle, and so we turn to the use of complex numbers in either rectangular or polar form.

If we are to use numbers to understand processes in the physical world, make scientific predictions, or balance our checkbooks, we must have a way of symbolically denoting them. In other words, we may know how much money we have in our checking account, but to keep record of it we need to have some system worked out to symbolize that quantity on paper, or in some other kind of form for record-keeping and tracking. There are two basic ways we can do this: analog and digital. With analog representation, the quantity is symbolized in a way that is infinitely divisible. With digital representation, the quantity is symbolized in a way that is discretely packaged.

You're probably already familiar with an analog representation of money, and didn't realize it for what it was. Have you ever seen a fund-raising poster made with a picture of a thermometer on it, where the height of the red column indicated the amount of money collected for the cause? The more money collected, the taller the column of red ink on the poster.