Patrick Stakem

Stem - Data Storage and Communications Patrick Stakem

This book covers the topic of the storage and communications of digital data for STEM. It is addressed to the teacher, providing information and pointers to information for developing a curriculum on this topic. Our technology is increasingly digital. Digital data is a quantitative value. It can approximate a analog (variable) or represent a digital (discrete) value. Analog data can be approximated in digital, to the accuracy required. Evidently, the word data in English dates back to 1640. There were references to transmittable and store-able computer information right after World War-II. References to "data processing" emerged in 1946, as "computer" began to refer to a room full of electronics, as apposed to a person with a mechanical calculator and a slide rule. Information is organized and analyzed data; answers to questions. Information reduces uncertainty. We live in a digital age, where everything of interest to use is digital - either sampled analog, or originating as digital. Color is continuous, a full range of analog data. What we see on a TV screen or digital camera image is sampled version of that. Our technology is based on digital; that's how we store, transmit, and process information. Thus our data is digital.