How CPU works p.1

Have you ever wondered how processors work? I'll try to explain it shortly and clearly so you will wonder no more! :)

 Part 1: Clockrate.

Processors and computers in general have a lot to do with physics and chemistry.Therefore, probably most important part of processor is crystal.Yes, crystal, such as quartz or any other you can find in nature.Importance of this tiny piece of crystal lies in it's special behaviour typical for crystals- piezoelectricity.Piezoelectricity is phenomenon, where crystal produces small electric charge after being physically deformed (we are not talking about smashing, but much much weaker forces).However, in computing is much more important reverse piezoelectricity.So when electric field hits this tiny crystal, it gets physically deformed.This 'deformations' results in oscillation of crystal at very high speed of very certain frequency.This is what you probably know as processor clock rate.

 So what is clock rate? It's just very small piece of crystal moving very quickly back and forth.

This crystal generates analog signal (sine wave) which is result of continuous movement of crystal between two positions and not instant jumps from position A to position B, and is converted by processor into digital signal (square wave) or as it's known - into "ones and zeros".

 So this is my very basic explanation of CPU's clock rate, which is basically speed at which it works.
 In next part we will discuss another CPU basic attribute.