A goldmine for beginners!

[Mint.]

I have recently came across a website that has caught my attention. It has got so many useful articles and links, I don't even know how many! The layout of the website is rather old fashioned and hard to get around, but nevertheless a goldmine! So many experiments and tutorials! After clicking around a bit, you can manage to find your way to loads of useful links. Here is the electronics portal of this site: http://amasci.com/amateur/elehob.html I hope that somebody else may find this useful.
P.S: Mr. Beaty has a rather interesting concept of voltage and current, it may take a bit to get used to, but otherwise, excellent resource. Enjoy!

[electrode]

This is the guy that did the transistor article I linked to.

I really like his capacitor article, especially his rubber membrane analogy. It's amazing how many people (even qualified EEs) that think a capacitor is an empty bucket that you fill with electrons. No! The number of electrons is always the same - its energy that's stored, not matter.

[Rerouter]

I have been directed to that site more than once, but i thank you for reminding me of it, was nice to read through the misconceptions,

engineering never teaches you how its the electron sea that gives metals there shine, science still breaks electricity into static and current, and thats wrong, and so many other small things that i was happy to be corrected by / be confirmed by.

hope some one has added this to the wiki, defintaly worth promoting,

[Mint.]

This is the guy that did the transistor article I linked to.

I really like his capacitor article, especially his rubber membrane analogy. It's amazing how many people (even qualified EEs) that think a capacitor is an empty bucket that you fill with electrons. No! The number of electrons is always the same - its energy that's stored, not matter.

Yes that is how I came across it. The article really helped me, I was very pleased with myself because I finally have a better understanding of transistors. I later on decided to have a look at the other tutorials and articles that the site had and I was very impressed. The approach that Bill uses is very different, but it works! He is a genius! I am also very pleased with the amount of links on the site, they all seem to be very useful.

[vk6zgo]

I'm a bit worried about his antenna concept---"The antenna will receive much better if it is transmitting at the same time,in phase with the incoming signal."
Unfortunately,we don't have the technology yet that can tell the difference between the two!
Maybe one day!
But then again,we can just use spraypaint!

With transistors,I don't really give a rodent's exhaust port about the Physics of them---that was the problem with a lot of the early Semiconductor  training.
It wasted page after page on valency bonds & stuff like that,but barely scratched the surface on Applications.

He really scrapes the bottom of the barrel with some of the "misconceptions",setting up some which very few people believe,then proceeding to demolish them.

His description of how capacitors work is exactly what we were taught in 1959 at Perth Tech College!

Sorry,but I'm not that big on gurus!

[electrode]

With transistors,I don't really give a rodent's exhaust port about the Physics of them---that was the problem with a lot of the early Semiconductor  training.

That's a sentiment I can relate to, to a certain extent. When I first tried to understand transistors, I kept getting lost in how they work and not how to use them. I think it's better to skim over the former and revisit it later, if interested, otherwise it's possible that one would just give up entirely and not make it to the latter.

[Jad.z]

Thanks for the link Mint.

I liked the WEIRD SCIENCE pages, especially this one: UNEXPLAINED PHENOMENA  .

[sonicj]

engineering never teaches you how its the electron sea that gives metals there shine

i thought reflected light was what gave metals their shine? 

[AntiProtonBoy]

i thought reflected light was what gave metals their shine? 

http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/1997-05/863034503.Ph.r.html

About halfway through, you'll get a discussion on this.



edit: fixed quote

[sonicj]

Ok, I think I get it.... So basically, surface preparation affects the amplitude of visible reflection, but ultimately the visible reflectivity of a material is based on it's ability to exchange electrons.?? Makes by brain hurt to think that deep. 

Hmm... Well I guess its true when they say "You can't polish a turd". 
-sj

[G7PSK]

http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/1997-05/863034503.Ph.r.html

About halfway through, you'll get a discussion on this.

If what he is saying here about electrons and light at absolute zero glass should become opaque and shiny surfaces no longer reflect light, as at absolute zero all electron movement ceases, this effect should start to become obvious at temperatures approaching absolute.

[SgtRock]

Greetings EEVBees:

--Indeed, AntiProtonBoy, makes a good point and cites a good source. Photons do not bounce. They are emitted but not really re-emitted, since they no more have an individual identity that an electron does. I think that Sonicj was only pretending to bite.

--The article G7PSK pointed to by Dr. Adrian E. Popa (an excellent article by the way) makes extensive references to lectures by Dr. Richard P. Feynman. If you would like more information about QED (Quantum Electrodynamics), I recommend you get it from the horse's mouth, Dr. Richard Phillip Feynman, who received the Nobel Prize in Physics, in 1965, for his QED theory. The Feynman diagram has since become ubiquitous in particle physics. See the below link to see Dr. Feynman's video lectures on QED at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

http://vega.org.uk/video/subseries/8

“I do not think that the wireless waves I have discovered will have any practical application”
Heinrich Rudolf Hertz 1857 1894

--P.S. I just now noticed that today Google is dedicated to Herr Professor Hertz. If you click on the sine wave it will take you to Google articles about him.

Best Regards
Clear Ether