Information can be represented and stored on a variety of electrical/mechanical devices. In many cases, the information relates to measurable variables such as elapsed time, total rainfall, or accumulated charge (for which the hourglass, rain gauge, and capacitor, respectively, are suitable representation devices.) But what about abstract information such as quantities in mathematics? Here we create an analogy between something that can be stored and measured in an electrical/mechanical device and a mathematical value. For example, we can assign an equivalence between mathematical value and electrical charge. The extent to which we can operate on that electrical charge via the capacitor and our measuring instruments is the degree to which we can perform analogous
mathematical calculations.
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