Information Transfer Chapter Notes | Science for Grade 4 PDF Download

Introduction

Patterns are used to send and receive information

• Prior to the invention of electricity, there was no fast or simple method for sending messages over long distances. Communication relied on handwritten letters. After the discovery of electricity, individuals began using electronic patterns for communication. 
  
• In 1944, the first Morse code device was developed. This device transmitted the earliest text messages through a sequence of long and short beeps representing letters and numbers. 
• One individual would send the message using the Morse code device, and another would decode the beeps into letters and numbers. The information was carried as electrical signals over telegraph wires.

Text and images are transmitted using a sequence of 1s and 0s.

• Currently, microchips in electronic devices generate data patterns that are sent to other devices. The receiving device interprets these patterns into understandable information. 
• Rather than using dots and dashes, modern devices employ sequences of 1s and 0s, which are converted into letters and numbers. 
  
• Digital images also rely on electronic patterns. These patterns control whether pixels are turned on or off. Pixels are essentially small lights.

Music can be stored and transferred as patterns of 1’s and 0’s.

• Although music differs from text or images, it is also transformed into a pattern of 1s and 0s. CDs store music as tiny patterns of pits on the disc's surface, where a pit signifies a 1 and the absence of a pit indicates a 0.  
• Digital music on your phone is similarly stored as patterns of 1s and 0s. A single song may consist of over ten million 1s and 0s, which computers can process rapidly, often at speeds exceeding a billion numbers per second.
  

Computer programming gives instructions to electronic devices.

• Once a text, image, or song is stored on your device, you can manipulate it using computer programming. Computer programming, often referred to as coding, involves issuing instructions to a computer in a language it can comprehend. 
• This enables the computer to execute tasks, such as sending a text message or playing a song. Computer programming entails creating computer code, which consists of a sequence of instructions converted into 1s and 0s for the computer to process.