What is so “Digital” about this World?

Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;
Brief as the lightning in the collied night
That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
And ere a man hath power to say "Behold!"
The jaws of darkness do devour it up:

So quick bright things come to confusion.

William Shakespeare9

Chapter Footnotes and Hyperlinks

  1. William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Nights Dream. Act 1, Scene 1, Lines 141-149. Spoken by Lysander in discussion with Hermia about the intense force of love. We can easily see these Shakespearean lines suitably used for the amazing power of electricity. Alas, Shakespeare died 100 years before its discovery. What prose would have flowed had he known.

  2. Genesis 1:3 (NIV)

  3. Hebrews 1:3 (KJV) – this important passage teaches that Jesus, the Word made flesh, possesses a preeminent place in the universe and his very spoken word is the power that holds all things together.

  4. 2 Peter 3:13 (KJV)

  5. 2 Peter 3:12 (KJV)

  6. David Bodanis, Electric Universe: The Shocking True Story of Electricity. Crown Publishing, 2005. This has proven to be an excellent resource in understanding how electricity has been used over the last two hundred years written in layman’s terms. He has captured the human side of this historical journey.

The First Digital Electronic Communication

  1. Alexander Volta (1745-1827) invented the first batteries by placing two dissimilar metals in a tube (cell) separated by a gap and then filled with brine. This invention is made even more remarkable by the fact that there was almost no reason to store an electrical charge in his time.

  2. At the end of Henry’s life he is quoted as saying: “God has created man in his own intellectual image, and graciously permitted him to study His modes of operation, and rewards his industry in this line by giving him powers and instruments which affect in the highest degree his material welfare.” Remarks given at the Laying of the Cornerstone of the American Museum of Natural History (New York), June 2, 1874: Arthur P. Molella, et al., eds., A Scientist in American Life: Essays and Lectures of Joseph Henry. Washington, D.C., 1980, p. 115.

  3. This is the account of the first time “electronic digital communication” occurred but the first forms of digital communication came long before the discovery of electricity. Probably the first long distance form of digital communication would have been the simple on and off messaging created between two distant tribes through smoke signals.

The Digital Switch

  1. Transistors . Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 1 April 2006 22:12 UTC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor “Transistors have three terminals where, in simplified terms, the application of voltage to the input terminal increases the conductivity between the other two terminals and hence controls current flow through those terminals. ….. In analog circuits, transistors are used in amplifiers, audio amplifiers, radio frequency amplifiers, regulated power supplies, and in computer PSUs, especially in switching power supplies. Transistors are also used in digital circuits where they function similarly to electrical switches. Digital circuits include logic gates, RAM (random access memory) and microprocessors.”

  2. Base 2 is also known as the Binary Numerical System. Binary numeral system . Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 5 April 2006 09:54 UTC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_2 “ The binary numeral system represents numeric values using two symbols, typically 0 and 1. More specifically, binary is a positional notation with a radix of two. Owing to its relatively straightforward implementation in electronic circuitry, the binary system is used internally by virtually all modern computers.”

Digital Ubiquity

  1. “Being or seeming to be everywhere at the same time; omnipresent: ‘plodded through the shadows fruitlessly like an ubiquitous spook’ (Joseph Heller).” The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000. Found atDictonary.com (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=ubiquitous )

  2. Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, New York, Vintage Books, 1993.

  3. Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore. The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects. Gingko Press, 2000. McLuhn, Canadian born, became the foremost critic and professor of media studies in the last half of the 20 th century. He argued that the tactile, all embracing effects of electric media will undo the linear, civilizing effects of phonetic alphabet and print.

  4. Ibid.

  5. Exodus 20: 3-5 (NIV)

Moore's Law

  1. Moore 's law. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 5 April 2006 08:27 UTC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law “ Moore's original statement can be found in his publication "Cramming more components onto integrated circuits", Electronics Magazine 19 April 1965: ‘ The complexity for minimum component costs has increased at a rate of roughly a factor of two per year ... Certainly over the short term this rate can be expected to continue, if not to increase. Over the longer term, the rate of increase is a bit more uncertain, although there is no reason to believe it will not remain nearly constant for at least 10 years. That means by 1975, the number of components per integrated circuit for minimum cost will be 65,000. I believe that such a large circuit can be built on a single wafer.’”

  2. Nanotchnology. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 5 April 2006 15:57 UTC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanotechnology Nanotechnology is any technology which exploits phenomena and structures that can only occur at the nanometer scale, which is the scale of single atoms and small molecules.

  3. Joel Garreau, Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing our Minds, our Bodies-and what it means to be Human. Random House, 2005. pg. 4.

  4. Note that silicone is the second most abundant element on the planet.

Listen to Greg read this section:

God has created an invisible digital power inside of every thing in our universe and we have only begun to tap the surface of what this means. Since the infusing moment when God pronounced, “Let there be light,”10 our universe has been held together by the unifying force of electricity. Consider the miracle of the electro-magnetic fields that hold everything together. Without these little atomic particles, so small that our most powerful microscopes cannot begin to unveil their presence, everything would fly apart into space at the sub-atomic level. Could it be that this is the point where creation meets the word of His power; “…and upholding all things by the word of his power,…”11 Is this magical electron where the physical meets the spiritual? Scriptures teach that one day, when God is finished with this physical universe and is ready to start a “…new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness,”12 He will cause the old one to melt with fervent heat. Peter’s apocalyptic vision describes this event with a sense of terror: “Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat.”13 Could this be the moment when He removes His invisible, holding force upon the electrons and allows them to fly indiscriminately into every direction, instantaneously dissolving all matter? If this is true then the electron connects us to the mystery and majesty of God’s creative pattern. This would mean God’s creative pattern is digital.

In the book “Electric Universe,” David Bodanis describes the mystifying activity of electrons:

“In the 20th Century the door opened even further. A few physicists were finally able to look directly at the face of electricity. The younger ones were awed by what they saw. Many of the older ones, including even the great Einstein , pulled back saying that what this now revealed was something they could never accept. What the researchers had found was the atoms inside us don’t really look like miniature solar systems with electrons orbiting like miniature planets around a tiny sun. Rather, these electrons, which are central to how electricity affects us, can wildly teleport from one location to another. It was the only partially predictable nature of these jumps that Einstein was thinking of when he famously said, ‘God does not play dice with the universe.’ And it was to that dictum that his friend Neils Bohr exasperatedly replied, ‘Einstein stop telling God what to do!’ That jumping of electrons within us would be as if the earth were an electron that could instantly shoot away from the sun and take up a position hovering above the planet Jupiter….”14

The simple digital signals, + or –, find their way into every aspect of matter and life itself. From the coldest inanimate object in the farthest reaches of space to the DNA molecule, our universe is governed by digital signatures and signals. Everything, everywhere is digital.

The First Digital Electronic Communication

It has only been a relatively short two hundred years since we have had the ability to manipulate electricity and unlock the digital value of this rarely seen force.

It was in 1826 that Joseph Henry , a jack-of-all-trades, found himself doing the unpleasant rustic work of a surveyor close to the Canadian border. The wilderness and cold were enough to convince Joseph that he had to find another occupation. An opportunity became available to teach math and science to elementary age boys in Albany, New York and thus started Joseph Henry’s long and distinguished career as an educator. As any experienced teacher will tell you, keeping the attention of twenty or so eleven year old boys cooped up in a winter schoolhouse is no easy task. He had to find something interesting that would occupy their restless yet inquisitive minds.

Joseph kept himself informed of the latest in scientific and technological research and development. The latest scientific fad was to manipulate and experiment with the unpredictable yet exciting force of electricity, something in which famous Philadelphian Benjamin Franklin had some renown. Joseph read about the recent experiments of Englishman William Sturgeon who, through a great deal of tinkering, discovered that if you wrap copper wire around iron and connect it to a battery, the iron becomes magnetized.15 Switch off the battery and it returns to simple iron.

Joseph knew that this would create an exciting science project for his boys and within six months they were able to duplicate Sturgeon’s effects with an electro-magnet that could lift ten pounds. He and his students continued with their experiments until they were able to lift astonishing weights of up to 1500 pounds. Joseph, a passionate Christian, would explain to his students, and his growing following, that God had placed these invisible forces within our universe for man to discover and use for His glory.16

Joseph and his boys continued to tinker with their new discovery. If they lengthened the wire between the battery and the magnet they still could achieve similar effects as long as the wire wasn’t too long. From a different location they could make the magnet turn on and off and ring a bell (this most likely became an excellent boyish prank on some unsuspecting teacher or student in the next room). . . . . .

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