Are you a musician? Have you ever used DAW like Cubase or Pro Tools? If not, have you ever tried the FOSS (GPLv3) Audacity audio editor [1]. Waves and Waveforms are colloquial terminology, so the terms are familiar to anyone in the industry as well as your average hobbyist.
Additionally, PCM [2] is at the heart of many of these tools, and is what is converted between digital and analog for real-world use cases.
This is literally how the ear works [3], so before arguing that this is the "worst possible representation of signal state," try listening to the sounds around you and think about how it is that you can perceive them.
Additionally, PCM [2] is at the heart of many of these tools, and is what is converted between digital and analog for real-world use cases.
This is literally how the ear works [3], so before arguing that this is the "worst possible representation of signal state," try listening to the sounds around you and think about how it is that you can perceive them.
[1] https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/audacity_waveform.html [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse-code_modulation [3] https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/how-do-we-hear