Copied Information

Information stored in binary form does not change when it is copied from one medium (storage method) to another. And an unlimited number of such copies can be made (remember the advantages of binary.) This is a very powerful combination. You may be so accustomed to this that it seems commonplace. But when you (say) download an image from the Internet, the data has been copied many dozens of times, using a variety of storage and transmission methods.

It is likely, for example, that the data starts out on magnetic disk and is then copied to main storage of the web site's computer (involving a voltage signal in between.) From main storage it is copied (again with a voltage signal in between) to a network interface card, which temporarily holds it in many transistors. From there it is sent as a electrical signal down a cable. Along the route to your computer, there may be dozens of computers that transform data from an electical signal, into main memory transistor form, then back to an electrical signal on another cable. Your data may even be transformed into a radio signal, sent to a satellite (with its own computers), and sent back to earth as another radio signal. Eventually the data ends up as data in your video card (transistors), which transforms it into a TV signal for your monitor.

The point of all of this is that the actual information (in this example the picture) does not change from one media to the next.