Ah ha! *The register transfer level - I was looking for you. Analogies: registers remember. combinational logic has no memory. "A synchronous circuit consists of two kinds of elements: registers and combinational logic. Registers (usually implemented as D flip-flops) synchronize the circuit's operation to the edges of the clock signal, and are the only elements in the circuit that have memory properties." And after researching flip-flop, I came across this marvelous article. which contains an interesting fact about how some [1]#humans *devotion to [2]#purelogic*flies in the face of [3]#reality *: "Serious computer and digital hardware bugs caused by metastability have a fascinating social history. Many engineers have refused to believe that a bistable device can enter into a state that is neither true nor false and has a positive probability that it will remain indefinite for any given period of time, " [4]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metastability_in_electronics References Visible links 1. https://plus.google.com/s/%23humans 2. https://plus.google.com/s/%23purelogic 3. https://plus.google.com/s/%23reality 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metastability_in_electronics