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| Why are physicists the electronics experts? |
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| EEVblog:
--- Quote from: Berni on August 20, 2020, 06:32:14 pm ---What question did you ask them? If it is something along the lines of "What kind of circuit should i use to transfer power and bidirectonal communication simultaneously over 2 wires" or "How do i make the switchmode regulator <Insert part no. here> output be digitally adjustable" you are very unlikely to get any sort of even remotely useful answer out of a physicist. If you instead ask something along the lines of "How does a bipolar transistor work?" or "How does an LED work?" or "Why do resistors make thermal noise?" then you are indeed more likely to get a much better answer out of a physicist. The electronics engineers just simply don't care what the electrons are doing inside of that transistor. They can't poke and touch those electrons in there to make them do anything else than what they normally do. They care about the transistors functionality of amplifying current, so they instead know how the transistor behaves and how to use that behavior to do something useful in a circuit. But physicists are way more interested in those electrons whizzing around inside trough those funky energy levels of the junction, while not really caring about what that transistor could do in a useful circuit. This leads to things like the much debated topic around Dr. Lewin and Kirchhoffs circuit rules. --- End quote --- Yes, that was a absolutely classic case of the way an electronics engineer sees things, and how a physicist sees things. In essence both of them were "right". |
| coppice:
--- Quote from: Rick Law on August 22, 2020, 05:01:03 am ---There are so many branches in Physics and many of them use electronics. Electronics is a "must learn" if you are a Physics major. --- End quote --- When I was at college doing my electronics degree the material used for the physics people's circuit design course was basically the same as ours. Their course was presented with a more instrumentation focus, but it covered roughly the same ground. |
| iteratee:
--- Quote from: coppice on August 21, 2020, 11:38:21 am --- --- Quote from: capt bullshot on August 21, 2020, 09:52:57 am ---Having understood the underlying physics helps to deal with many real-life electronics problems. Like EMC, noise, interference, efficiency, signal integrity, ... --- End quote --- You don't think an engineering degree covers that in great detail? --- End quote --- In 4 years? With half of courses being irrelivent bullshit and the rest being tought via a process that could only be conceived by an alien that doesn't understand human learning? Nope. No chance. *disclaimer: I'm part-alien and don't understand normal human learning either. As evidenced by the fact that normal people claim education works for them, for incomprehensible reasons. |
| pidcon:
I would imagine that physicists work in an academia-like environment and would be more open to communicating their ideas and definitely will take the time to explain how things work from their perspective. Maybe the engineer was too busy to write out a long explanation. |
| SiliconWizard:
--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on August 21, 2020, 11:25:17 pm --- --- Quote from: SiliconWizard on August 21, 2020, 09:13:54 pm --- --- Quote from: Nominal Animal on August 21, 2020, 06:56:41 pm ---Like they say: Those that can, do; those that can't, teach. :P --- End quote --- Whereas that's kind of true when people choose a career path, that's not an absolute truth in general. --- End quote --- No! That was a self-referential joke. As in, I try to teach, even though I'm just an uncle bumblespork. I've been told it is in my blood. --- Quote from: SiliconWizard on August 21, 2020, 09:13:54 pm ---So getting back to EEVBlog's forum, your statement is even kind of insulting. --- End quote --- Why would you consider it that way? I've reread my posts in this thread, and can't see a reason why one would think that. It certainly wasn't my intention. --- End quote --- Oh nevermind, I likely overinterpreted what you wrote. But in the context of the thread and of what you said above, it was kind of conveying the idea that most people helping others out on tech forums must just be hobbyists or people who haven't achieved anything much, which was backed by your "I'd say that the overwhelming majority of people answering questions online do so on topics they have as a hobby, not as a day job." sentence. So the "teachers are not doers" part that followed just looked like a nail in the coffin. Re-read better, I guess you'll have to admit it was a gross generalization and could be misinterpreted. Of course generalizations are just that. "Online" is a pretty big place with a lot of different things happening. I'd personally be hard-pressed to say what a "majority" of people do "online" and why. But back to the topic, the OP's statement IME is certainly NOT true. |
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