3 ms·

This is the best one. I'm a professional in this area (physicist turned EE), and coming by this explanation took me a lot more time and energy than just reading

This is the best one. I'm a professional in this area (physicist turned EE), and coming by this explanation took me a lot more time and energy than just reading his article. Transistor action is a wonderfully subtle yet powerful phenomenon. (In the same vein, of hard questions with easy-ish answers once you do the research, but that no one ever answers: why is N-type silicon better performing than P-type, down there at the most fundamental level? And whither the P-channel depletion mode MOSFET?) I dislike Beaty's writing style and fondness for pedantry (though I concede that clearing the air about definitions is extremely valuable), but his explanations are accessible and they are always correct in ways that few other sources are, and that's amazing.

wbeaty 6y ago
My parents were grade-school teachers, and my dad almost got fired for defending the idea that nickel metal is magnetic. But it's right there in the grade school textbooks! The only magnetic materials are IRON AND STEEL! PERIOD! (Oh and also the blood in your veins is bright blue like paint. And gravity in space is zero.) Back in the 1980s I decided to do something about this (via science museum exhibit designs.) Then I discovered the great power of "educational memes," like engineering your own Vaccina viruses which spread all through the textbooks, jumping from author to author and innoculating millions of little kids against the bad information. But to do this successfully, I'd have to write website articles which 1) correct the misinformation in textbooks, 2) didn't draw attention from powerful critics who would put a stop to all that and, also 3) didn't create even worse mistakes! My first one was this: http://amasci.com/wing/airfoil.html http://amasci.com/wing/airfoil.html This "lifting-force counter-meme" has now spread system-wide. Air doesn't split before the wing, then rejoins behind the wing. Instead the so-called"path-length" or "equal transit-time" explanation is wrong, and actually the air above the wing will greatly out-race the air traveling below. The parcels are split, but then they experience significant "phase shift," so they never re-join again (this as long as lift is being created.)

wbeaty 6y ago

My parents were grade-school teachers, and my dad almost got fired for defending the idea that nickel metal is magnetic. But it's right there in the grade school textbooks! The only magnetic materials are IRON AND STEEL! PERIOD! (Oh and also the blood in your veins is bright blue like paint. And gravity in space is zero.) Back in the 1980s I decided to do something about this (via science museum exhibit designs.) Then I discovered the great power of "educational memes," like engineering your own Vaccina viruses which spread all through the textbooks, jumping from author to author and innoculating millions of little kids against the bad information. But to do this successfully, I'd have to write website articles which 1) correct the misinformation in textbooks, 2) didn't draw attention from powerful critics who would put a stop to all that and, also 3) didn't create even worse mistakes! My first one was this: http://amasci.com/wing/airfoil.html http://amasci.com/wing/airfoil.html This "lifting-force counter-meme" has now spread system-wide. Air doesn't split before the wing, then rejoins behind the wing. Instead the so-called"path-length" or "equal transit-time" explanation is wrong, and actually the air above the wing will greatly out-race the air traveling below. The parcels are split, but then they experience significant "phase shift," so they never re-join again (this as long as lift is being created.)