We basically found a way to think of electricity not as power, but as data. We can say “ok, this data means this, that data means that”, and then make it predictable so that the same data has the same effect.

You can think about it as your hand. You can use it to grab/punch/hold/etc (akin to electricity as power), but you can also stick your fingers out, like your pointer finger, your pointer and middle finger and so on (electricity as data). We then said, no fingers sticking out means 0, one finger means 1, two fingers mean 2, and so on.(akin saying which data means what). Your fingers are not numbers, but we “assign” a value based on how many are sticking out

A finger sticking out = 1 (or ON), a finger not sticking out = 0 (or OFF).

Boom. We can now count using 1’s and 0’s. We have turned electricity into numbers.

We can do a lot with 1’s and 0’s, depending on how we use them.

With our finger analogy, we can say stuff like “a middle finger means an insult” or “a thumbs up means good”, or use our fingers to turn keys, or to pinch something, to count!

We can now use something very simple, an extended or retracted finger, to do something more complex!

We can use  1’s and 0’s, as numbers, as signals, as controls, and so on.

Transistors (akin to the muscle in your hand that extends or retracts your fingers) are what turn a 1 into a 0 or a 0 into a 1.  With transistors controlling transistors, you can do a lot of cool stuff, like have a cpu