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What EE/EM research can be done at home any more ?
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Infraviolet:
Certainly in the electronic engineering field thesedays one can easily do at home things which only specialised companies could a few decades ago, but the really tricky part is knowing what to do which is new and can't just be done with an off-the-shelf "chip that does it all for you". In the physical electromagnetics field thesedays I guess that a major focus isn't on real experiments any more but on finding ways to better predict and simulate complex phenomena (so that designs for antennas and other EM devices can be tested more in software before fabricating a first prorotype, because that can be fully automated whereas physical fabrication and testing can't) , I suppose accessing a cloud supercomputer cluster to run sims could count as "done from home" too.
TimFox:

--- Quote from: MathWizard on February 01, 2023, 03:31:36 am ---There's a lot of early experiment that would still be hard to do, without a lot of resources. Like the experiment where the guy figured out the charge on an electron, using basically dust grains in air, with static charge, vs gravity.

Someone could make a really cool museum with all the early science experiments. And add in the early technology too, like at the Museum of Computer History , iirc the name.

--- End quote ---

The Millikan oil-drop experiment was used to determine the electron's charge, using droplets of watch oil and a reversible electric field.
His equipment was still at the University of Chicago when I started there, and I actually used one to repeat the experiment.
It required looking through a short telescope and a window with fiducial lines to see the drops go slowly up and down when the voltage on the two electrodes was reversed.
There was a small radioactive source that could be moved in place to increment the net charge on a drop to see the resulting change in behavior.
The big problem was keeping track of my drop while noting the time from a stopwatch in the lab notebook.
If I remember correctly, the old Amateur Scientist column in Scientific American (maybe around 1960?) had a detailed article about how to build your own unit.
Infraviolet:
Just a thought actually, quite a bit of stuff that is, in practice, electronics is, in theory, physics. The book Horowitz and Hill is fileld with examples from the author's work where they built electronic devices to aid in physics research, so maybe that line of thought is worth some further consideration. The Oil Drop Experiment is just such an example, albeit from an earlier age of electronics.
jonpaul:
Millikan oil dropper experiment determined the charges on a,single electron

The Wilson cloud chamber first visualizes the tracks of atomic particles, the Alpha.

Rontegen discovered X rays, he used a crookes tube and noticed flogging of wrapped photographie plates.

All Pioneering discoveries at the root of modern physics, all done with simple handmade equipment.

See Scientific American magazine amateur Scientist column 1928..2001 for DIY versions of these experiments.

Enjoy

Jon

Canis Dirus Leidy:

--- Quote from: MathWizard on January 30, 2023, 03:27:34 am ---Besides making free energy machines or free Britney machines !! What EE or electromagnetism research can be done at home any more, without being super rich?

--- End quote ---
Define "research" and "super rich": http://www.y1pwe.co.uk/RAProgs/index.html
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