3 ms·

Analogies aren’t perfect, but they’re still useful. How else are you gonna explain to a grade schooler the difference between voltage and current? This article

• fn-mote 2y ago
  This. The premise of the article is that the hydraulic analogy breaks down for semiconductors. My reaction: no kidding, a classical explanation doesn’t cover fundamentally quantum devices. The whole premise that your model should only need small tweaks to evolve seems wrong. The author has probably forgotten their first encounter with quantum mechanics. It’s not a small tweak. It’s a bewildering change. Is it particularly wrong to be using hydraulics to explain MOSFETs? I’m not qualified to have an opinion on this; maybe someone is holding on to the analogy too long. For classical effects it works well.
• cruffle_duffle 2y ago
  Obviously you bust out your university physics book and work through the equations with them! There is nothing my 9 year old loves more than doing derivatives! We didn’t even teach her the equations for velocity or distance, we derived them starting from Jerk and integrated our way up the food chain. And none of that linear single dimension nonsense either, kiddo learned in both 3D and polar coordinates from day one; with friction too because like spherical cows, friction-free is a lie. Teaching grade schoolers single-dimension, frictionless physics really messes them up once they get into grad school and start doing real math.