This question always reminded me of the (excellent) book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". The author explores the philosophy of engineering as being the art of separating things in to their components. At the risk of spoiling some of the book, a major struggle the author goes through is the paradox that there seems to be an infinite number of ways to split some kinds of systems, with no productive work ever being done. This question feels like that... you can split it down to the tiniest discrete system and you'll find you haven't gained much.
That's not to say that you wouldn't gain SOMETHING, nor that it's a bad interview question. I actually like it. It's just not terribly productive, in an engineering sense.
> that there seems to be an infinite number of ways to split some kinds of systems
Indeed、you can even go to the electron level to describe what's happening in the circuitry and how it interacts with the silicon to propagate signals... it's never ending.
Good point. Reading this article, it also crossed my mind that the level of detail is always arbitrary. There is no "right" level of detail, that explains everything. We can keep going infinitely more into detail, explaining each step in more and more detail.
This article could just as well have included an explanation of how and why electrons travel from one point to another, or "the quantum effects that govern this" (a figurative example).
A metaphor for this that references the world of electronics is the ability to always increase the resolution of a display. We can keep going on, although the human eye might not be able to pick up a difference after a certain point.
Perhaps there is also a limit to the usefulness of increasing the level of detail in an explanation, as this article does, just as there's a limit to the usefulness of increasing display resolution.
That's not to say that you wouldn't gain SOMETHING, nor that it's a bad interview question. I actually like it. It's just not terribly productive, in an engineering sense.