I use the word "bits" deliberately, to evoke an analogy with the digital. Not only is a "bit" a small quantity of something (such as an atom), it is also the term for the smallest unit of data in a computing system. These bits are physical things – in early computing they were housed in sequences on punched cards, now they are embodied as voltages on tiny transistors. Different sequences of bits (ones and zeroes), different digital information. Different shapes and arrangements of atoms, different bodies.
