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Concept
Digital Revolution
Summary
The Digital Revolution, also known as the Third Industrial Revolution, is the shift from mechanical and analogue electronic technologies from the Industrial Revolution towards digital electronics which began in the latter half of the 20th century, with the adoption and proliferation of digital computers and digital record-keeping, that continues to the present day. Implicitly, the term also refers to the sweeping changes brought about by digital computing and communication technologies during this period. From analogies to the Agricultural Revolution (Neolithic) and the First Industrial Revolution (1760-1840), the Digital Revolution marked the beginning of the Information Age.
Central to this revolution is the mass production and widespread use of digital logic, MOSFETs (MOS transistors), integrated circuit (IC) chips, and their derived technologies, including computers, microprocessors, digital cellular phones, and the Internet. These technological innovations have transformed traditional production and business techniques.
Since 2015, a Fourth Industrial Revolution has been proposed to follow the Third Industrial Revolution.
The Second Industrial Revolution in the last quarter of the 19th century led to important underlying technology, including Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine and the telegraph.
Digital communication became economical for widespread adoption after the invention of the personal computer. Claude Shannon, a Bell Labs mathematician, is credited for having laid out the foundations of digitalization in his pioneering 1948 article, A Mathematical Theory of Communication.
The digital revolution converted technology from analog format to digital format. By doing this, it became possible to make copies that were identical to the original. In digital communications, for example, repeating hardware was able to amplify the digital signal and pass it on with no loss of information in the signal. Of equal importance to the revolution was the ability to easily move the digital information between media, and to access or distribute it remotely.
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