How do you "time" the measure of binary streams?
To most components we can attach an internal clock, that is made sure to &quot;tick&quot; at a rate with intervals bigger than the time needed for the current to pass through the circuit. Then, each &quot;tick&quot; the components look at their input and evaluate the output.
This is what defines &quot;when&quot; and &quot;what&quot; a component sees, which (also) allows it to differentiate even between a single 0 and series of 0's.