Forrest Mims on Amp Hour

[kaz911]

Hi Guys,

just wanted to say thanks for the great Amp hour show today - Forrest Mims interview was excellent - and could have been just as long as Vincent's (or should have been *G*) - Vincent interview was great as well!.

THANKS

Ohh and Chris - did you know your surname means "old" in Middle English (very old English) & Scandinavian? In German it is a nickname for "Junk" though

[ChrisGammell]

I've been told it means lots of different things, no clue which ones are correct. I do know Gammell is a Scottish name, though I'm 100% mutt

[JoannaK]

Excellent show. I'm sure Mims has had a lot more stories to tell, so I'd like to hear him again on some later show.

Kaz911: IIRC the Swedish have word Gammalt, that means old, so may well be related since swdes/norwegians did quite a lot bisness with brits in old times.

[hammy]

Yes, great show! 

In German it is a nickname for "Junk" though

You mean: "gammel"
Yes, this means some old and obsolete stuff. Not directly junk, but also not far away from it.

[Orpheus]

Aw, was disappointed that Dave didn't remember that Gene Shoemaker as a former NASA astronaut and astrogeologist. Okay, not an astronomer, but hardly an amateur.  Youngsters may not remember, but he was disqualified from walking on the Moon, due to an adrenal condition -- heartbreaking!

David Levy was the amateur astronomer whose formal background was in English Lit (However, after discovering 22 more comets and writing 34 books, he finally got a PhD in some branch of astronomy -- can't remember which)

Twas Brilliant and our Slithy Two
Did trademark "podcast overfill"
All Mimsy was the Amp Hour
And the Mims fans were thrilled

[ChrisGammell]

Yes, great show! 

In German it is a nickname for "Junk" though

You mean: "gammel"
Yes, this means some old and obsolete stuff. Not directly junk, but also not far away from it.

Ah...so like old analog crap. Sounds good to me!

[Stonent]

Hmm this is the third reference to Forrest Mims today for me. I mentioned him in a thread about what to do with a 556 chip, and one on LEDs and Phototransistors.

[Kryoclasm]

Great show, I hope you can have Mr. Mims back on in the future!   

I had all of the engineers mini notebooks when I was a kid in the  80's.
Awesome collection of projects and simple, to the point education for those of use who are math disadvantaged.

Now, I no longer have those booklets.... I might have to but them again just to support his royalties. 

[kaz911]

Excellent show. I'm sure Mims has had a lot more stories to tell, so I'd like to hear him again on some later show.

Kaz911: IIRC the Swedish have word Gammalt, that means old, so may well be related since swdes/norwegians did quite a lot bisness with brits in old times.

Joanna - I'm Danish - and my wife is British - from "Up North" UK - and in the North of England there are a LOT of Scandinavian words most likely from the Vikings went on their "raids" - and a lot of the towns have Viking names. I have one of their local dialect "dictionaries" and at least 80% of the words there are from old Scandinavian (norse) influence.

[creyc]

Very great show with the legendary Forrest Mims, he seems like a guy with plenty of stories!  I must admit I waited (quite impatiently) for this episode to air.

I particularly liked his suggestion of getting Woz on the show   C'mon how can we make this happen!

[pickle9000]

Hope you can get him on again that was very entertaining. I'd be interested to hear what he thinks about the eevblog teardowns and so on.

[casinada]

I grew up too with the Forrest Mims the IIIrd They still sell his books at Radio Shack. I like his didactic style. I'm sure Forrest CAD predates Dave's CAD
David Levy is a local here in Tucson, Arizona. This town is big in astronomy. I listen to him on the radio from time to time. He and his wife are still looking at the sky and finding new comets. It seems that on November 16 we are going to have big meteor showers, it should be interesting to watch. 

[EEVblog]

David Levy was the amateur astronomer whose formal background was in English Lit

Yes, I think I confused the two.

[ResistorRob]

Here is how the inventor of the 555 says it
http://www.semiconductormuseum.com/Transistors/LectureHall/Camenzind/Camenzind_AudioClip1.mp3

 

[timb]

Great show, I hope you can have Mr. Mims back on in the future!   

I had all of the engineers mini notebooks when I was a kid in the  80's.
Awesome collection of projects and simple, to the point education for those of use who are math disadvantaged.

Now, I no longer have those booklets.... I might have to but them again just to support his royalties. 

Growing up in the early 90's I bought them all as well. Taught me a ton about basic electronics.

FYI, they merged all of them into three bigger books a few years back. They sell them on Amazon for lest than $10 each. I bought them a couple of months back and it really brought back some memories.

Haven't listened to the show yet, hopefully I'll have a nice long drive coming up soon.

[Tepe]

Gammel is the Danish word for old

[Stonent]

Before there was Grumpy Cat, there was Sad Diode.

[timb]

Good episode. The religious aspect was kinda interesting, I wasn't aware he was Christian. I'm sort of surprised that Scientific America did that, but then again I know a lot of people in science who have a bias towards anyone that's not an Atheist. I asked a well known professor about it once and his take was, "If they don't have enough intelligence to see through religion then they can't be smart enough to be in *real* science." Which I thought was a bit pretentious and presumptuous.

[Towger]

Good episode. The religious aspect was kinda interesting, I wasn't aware he was Christian.

I found that interesting as well. I thought Dave did well not to express his views on the subject. You can hear him catching himself when Forrest first mentioned it.

[rolycat]

Good episode. The religious aspect was kinda interesting, I wasn't aware he was Christian. I'm sort of surprised that Scientific America did that, but then again I know a lot of people in science who have a bias towards anyone that's not an Atheist. I asked a well known professor about it once and his take was, "If they don't have enough intelligence to see through religion then they can't be smart enough to be in *real* science." Which I thought was a bit pretentious and presumptuous.

Scientific American's problem was not that he was Christian, but that he was (and is) a creationist.

While Mims is clearly a very intelligent guy, he is not rational on the subject of evolution. His religious beliefs have led him to become a fellow of the Discovery Institute, which is a deeply unpleasant organization devoted to replacing scientific thought and critical inquiry with pseudo-scientific religious claptrap, particularly in schools. One can see why Scientific American thought that employing him could have been a problem, even if the science in his chosen fields of research is impeccable.

[timb]

Oh shit... 

Yeah, I know all about the Discovery Institute. This is really depressing... It's like when you have someone you really look up to, perhaps even idolize, then one day find out they're a child molester. Only, this is worse; he's a...CREATIONIST!

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against people that are religious, as long as you're not hurting someone else knock yourself out. But to find out that someone who's so smart (a scientist even) believes Genesis is a factual account of how we came to be... How can I trust anything else they say?

I mean, I know a couple of real scientists who are Christian, but they believe everything in the Bible is more allegorical, i.e., people trying to explain the unexplainable in a way that made sense to them at the time. For instance, one person I know thinks Adam being created out of mud is a metaphor for evolution (we all started as primordial ooze). I can at least respect that, but Creationism? Damn...

My fiancé is the organizer of a local Skeptic Meetup Group; we're having a regular meeting tomorrow (Skeptic Sunday Brunch) so I'll have to bring this up. So depressing.

[AlfBaz]

I particularly enjoyed his implantation of electronic skills in the measurement field and probably more about the collating of data over time and seeing patterns. Then deducing and following up the deduction with more data gathering.

We all know, for example, that temp changes throughout the day but to see it over several days and noting patterns is fascinating. Even more so for the type of data he's collecting

[Marco]

Probably the answer lies in power and influence, and wealth for the clerics. Also you would need to confront being deceived by your parents and that they are wrong. Maybe there are social pressures too.

I blame it on rationalism at least as far as relatively intelligent biblical literalists is concerned ... a non sociopathic atheist is generally a romantic, you embrace the irrational and personal meaning you attach to life. Those who neither want to embrace romanticism nor nihilism have to live a lie ... and that is easiest by embracing one big lie (God) from which the supposedly objective standards around which you want to base your life can all stem. Once you embrace God for those reasons it becomes hard to allow subjective interpretation of your crutch, so literalism is the natural follow up.

[Stonent]

Good episode. The religious aspect was kinda interesting, I wasn't aware he was Christian.

I found that interesting as well. I thought Dave did well not to express his views on the subject. You can hear him catching himself when Forrest first mentioned it.

There's only like a billion in the world. You're bound to run into a few now and then.

[Vgkid]

This was a very interesting podcast. I only started watching them this week. My first electronics book was one
Of Mr. Mims books. My parents actually marked circuits that I could do (mains voltage). Btw I always knew he was a Christian, not that it bothers me.