|  | 5.5 |
Collisions and Collision Domains in Shared Layer Environments
| 5.5.3 | Signals in a collision
When a collision occurs, the data packets that are involved are destroyed, bit by bit. In order to avoid this problem, the network should have in place a system that can manage the competition for the medium (contention). For example, a digital system can only recognize two voltage, light, or electromagnetic wave states. Therefore, in a collision, the signals interfere, or collide, with each other. Just as two cars cannot occupy the same space, on the same road, at the same time, neither can two signals occupy the same medium, at the same time.