Mineral-insulated, metal-sheathed (Type MI) cable is an ultra-reliable, extremely robust wire. It is suitable for the most demanding applications that include instrumentation and power in hazardous locations, outdoor use for services, feeders and branch circuits, nuclear reactors, and extremely high ambient temperatures. Maximum circuit rating, depending on the manufacturer, is 1 kV. Type MI cable […]
New Articles
Mineral-Insulated, Metal-Sheathed (Type MI) Cable —
A range of indicators for force measurement: Type 1020-FMD
New force measuring instruments need to have more functions and features, be smaller and offer more value for the money. PENKO responds to this challenge with its new product range, Type 1020-FMD. These instruments are suitable for automatic as well non- automatic applications. They are an ideal interface between load cells with an integrated controller […]
Stability in oscillators
The oscillator is a critical component of many types of electronic equipment. Transmitters are one obvious example of a critical application, but virtually all receivers — including TV’s, operating on the superheterodyne principle — mix a local oscillator with the radio-frequency (RF) signal to produce a more manageable intermediate carrier wave. Other oscillator applications include […]
Mass, charge, and spin
From a relativistic point of view, mass-energy is the total amount of energy of a body as expressed in Einstein’s E = mc2. Individual particles may have mass. The electron is often said to have no mass but actually has a small amount: 1/1,836 that of a proton. To be precise, the mass of an […]
Inflate, deflate — Will the universe end
in a bang or a whimper?
Most scientists currently think the cosmological Big Bang Theory is valid. In this view, the universe, including time and space, began with a massive explosion at an infinitesimal point. Some people wonder why this happened when it did. What sort of ticking clock initiated the event? But this is a meaningless question. Time itself began […]
String theory made simpler
The Standard Model of particle physics has been widely accepted among theoreticians but the problem is that it doesn’t integrate all that well with Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Gravity, more enigmatic than the other forces in nature, has remained a question mark for quantum mechanics. We seem to understand how gravity works on a large […]
A hands-on way to learn
digital logic functions
Spark Fun offers a battery-powered experimenter’s logic block kit that provides a visual representation of digital logic gates. It includes the battery and logic blocks with LEDs showing the ON or OFF state of each gate. The blocks plug into one another and there is a time delay built into each one so that the […]
The characteristic impedance of the universe
Does the universe have characteristic impedance? If so, what is its value? Answers begin to emerge as we consider these facts: 1. Characteristic impedance is an attribute of any medium that can support the transmission of an electromagnetic wave regardless of whether or not it is connected to a power source at one end and […]
Stephen Hawking and Hawking radiation
Stephen Hawking, the well-known cosmologist and theoretical physicist, has focused his intellect on an elusive problem: How can Einstein’s relativistic universe be reconciled with our quantum understanding of the world of elementary particles? Both of these lines of inquiry have been developed into full-fledged theories that are currently supported by no small amount of experimental […]
The basics of PC-based oscilloscopes
The PC-based oscilloscope has one major thing going for it: It is much less expensive than a conventional bench-type or even hand-held oscilloscope. If the instrument were much cheaper, its developers would be paying you to take it. And PC-based devices incorporate a lot of features originally developed for the full-scale models, although many are […]