Baud facts for kids
Baud is a unit used in telecommunications to measure how many signals, or "symbols," are sent each second. If one symbol is sent per second, that's equal to one Baud. This unit is named after Jean-Maurice-Émile Baudot, a French engineer who invented the Baudot code.
What is Baud?
Imagine you are sending messages using a flashlight. Each time you flash the light, that's one "symbol." If you flash the light five times in one second, your symbol rate is 5 Baud. Baud tells us how quickly the basic signals are changing on a communication line.
Baud vs. Bit Rate
It's important to know that Baud is different from the bit rate. The bit rate measures how many "bits" of information are sent per second. A bit is the smallest piece of data, like a "0" or a "1."
Sometimes, one symbol can carry more than one bit of information. Think of it like this:
- If each flashlight flash (symbol) can only mean "on" or "off" (1 bit), then 1 Baud equals 1 bit per second.
- But what if you could flash the light in different colors, and each color meant something different? For example, red means "00," blue means "01," green means "10," and yellow means "11." Now, each flash (symbol) carries 2 bits of information!
So, if you send one colored flash per second (1 Baud), you are actually sending 2 bits per second. This means the bit rate (2 bits/second) is higher than the Baud rate (1 Baud).
Who Invented Baud?
The unit "Baud" is named after Jean-Maurice-Émile Baudot. He was a clever French engineer who lived from 1845 to 1903. Baudot invented a special code and a printing telegraph system. His inventions helped make sending messages over long distances much faster and more reliable.
How Baud Works in Real Life
A great example of Baud in action is gigabit ethernet, which is used for very fast internet connections. Gigabit ethernet has a symbol rate of 125 million Baud (125 MBd). This means it sends 125 million symbols every second.
However, each of these symbols carries 2 bits of information. Plus, gigabit ethernet uses four different wires to send data at the same time. So, the total bit rate is calculated like this:
- 125 million symbols per second (Baud rate)
- Each symbol carries 2 bits
- There are 4 wires sending data at once
This adds up to a total of 1000 million bits per second, which is 1 gigabit per second (1 Gbit/s)! This shows how a lower Baud rate can still lead to a very high bit rate when each symbol carries more data.
