[Prof MAD] runs us through The Hidden Power of Inductors — Why Coils Resist Change. The less often used of the passive components, the humble and mysterious inductor is the subject of this video. The essence of inductance is a conductor’s tendency to resist changes in current. When the current is steady it is invisible, […]
The heat pump has become a common fixture in many parts of modern life. We now have reverse-cycle air conditioning, heat pump hot water systems, and even heat pump dryers. These home appliances have all been marketed as upgrades over simpler technologies from the past, and offer improved efficiency and performance for a somewhat-higher purchase […]
Helium is inert, which makes it useful in a lot of different industries. But helium’s colorless and odorless non-reactivity also means traditional gas sensing methods don’t work. Specialized detectors exist, but are expensive and fussy. Thankfully, researcher [Li Fan] and colleagues found a physics-based method of detecting helium that seems as elegant as it is […]
Very-long baseline interferometry (VLBI) is a technique in radio astronomy whereby multiple radio telescopes cooperate to bundle their received data and in effect create a much larger singular radio telescope. For this to work it is however essential to have exact timing and other relevant information to accurately match the signals from each individual radio […]
Thomas Edison is well known for his inventions (even if you don’t agree he invented all of them). However, he also occasionally invented things he didn’t understand, so they had to be reinvented again later. The latest example comes from researchers at Rice University. While building a replica light bulb, they found that Thomas Edison […]
These days, the conversation around climate change so often focuses on matters of soaring temperatures and extreme weather events. While they no longer dominate the discourse, rising sea levels will nonetheless still be a major issue to face as global average temperatures continue to rise. This poses unique challenges in coastal areas. Municipalities must figure […]
Over the past years there have appeared in the media increasingly more alarming reports about micro- and nanoplastics (MNPs) and the harm that they are causing not only in the environment, but also inside our bodies. If some of the published studies were to be believed, then MNPs are everywhere inside our bodies, from our […]
While it has become a word, laser used to be an acronym: “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation”. But there is an even older technology called a maser, which is the same acronym but with light switched out for microwaves. If you’ve never heard of masers, you might be tempted to dismiss them as […]
When last we saw [xoreaxeax], he had built a lens-less optical microscope that deduced the structure of a sample by recording the diffraction patterns formed by shining a laser beam through it. At the time, he noted that the diffraction pattern was a frequency decomposition of the specimen’s features – in other terms, a Fourier […]