Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976) propounded (as applicable to quantum mechanics) his Uncertainty principle in 1927. It stated that there is a fundamental limit to the precision with which certain paired properties of subatomic particles can be known simultaneously. Two such properties are position and momentum. In the original formulation, Heisenberg seemed to be saying that the […]
Planck’s Constant and discrete energy levels
Planck’s constant is 6.62606957 × 10-34 m2 kg/sec. Notice the -34 exponent. That means it is an extremely small number. To see how this plays out, we must go back to the year 1894, when Max Planck, first a gifted musician who had become a professor of physics and theoretician, focused his intellect on the […]
Schrödinger’s Cat Paradox
A science fiction staple is the scene where an older and wiser character advances the action by explaining Schrödinger’s cat paradox to prospective time travelers looking to take advantage of a warp in time. Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961) was a serious Nobel Prize-winning Austrian physicist whose fields of interest included thermodynamics and quantum theory. Specifically, he […]
Bohr and why electrons don’t crash into their nucleus
At the end of the nineteenth century, theoretical physics was in disarray. Competing theories regarding very small- and very large-scale phenomena were incomplete and conflicted to such an extent that it seemed there could be no resolution. The Michelson-Morley experiment’s failure to detect an immovable luminiferous aether led to absurd fabrications such as the Lorentz–FitzGerald […]
What’s a cavity resonator?
Ordinary electrical cable, even coax and twisted pair, is unable to carry current above a certain frequency. At one gigahertz, capacitive and inductive losses become unacceptable for most applications. This attenuation also depends upon the length of the line, a fact that dismayed early telegraphers. As mentioned in a previous article, high-frequency signals can travel […]
Basics of waveguides
There is something almost comical about a waveguide – the notion that electromagnetic signals or usable power could pass through a hollow pipe and that techniques appropriate to the plumber’s trade would be needed to bend the pipe and make it leak proof. Flanged joints and gaskets are actually used! To understand what is going […]
Basics of coax cable
Coaxial cable receives its name because all its parts — outer jacket, grounded return conductor, dielectric layer and inner metallic pin — share a common axis. Many installers assume the purpose of the dielectric layer is to insulate the center pin from the braided or foil shielding, but in reality the way coax works is […]
James Clerk Maxwell and his four equations of electromagnetic fields
Clicking on Google Books and typing “James Clerk Maxwell” will quickly bring you to A Treatise on Electricity And Magnetism (1873). In this awesome volume, Maxwell synthesizes and thoroughly rationalizes the work of Faraday and other researchers. True, Maxwell’s outer limits were challenged by the Michelson-Morley experiment, which failed to detect the lumeniferous aether that […]
Michelson, Morley, and the quest to find aether
It seemed only natural to James Clerk Maxwell and his colleagues that electromagnetic radiation, including light, would consist of vibrations in a lumeniferous (“Light-bearing”) aether. The mechanism was considered analogous to sound which, since ancient times, had been known to consist of vibrations in air and other media. Another assumption was that this aether was […]
Joseph Henry and mutual inductance
Joseph Henry (1797-1878) discovered the phenomenon of mutual inductance independently and more or less simultaneously with Michael Faraday. Because Faraday published his results a little earlier, he received credit for the discovery. But due to the large volume and quality of his published research, Henry gained stature early in life. He was six years younger […]