May 5, 2006
[Pease Porridge] What's All This Crampon Stuff, Anyhow?
Back in February 1955, when I was just 14, I snowshoed with Professor John A. Williams, "Alpine Fred" Torrey, and a group of Explorer Scouts up to Crag Cabin at the 4200-ft level on Mt. Adams in New Hampshire. I was strong enough to carry a little extra weight, so they volunteered me to carry some crampons—a set of spikes for climbing on ice and hard-packed snow. I carried them, though I had no idea what they were good for. After we ascended up to 4400...
October 2005[Pease Porridge] What’s All This Nap Stuff, Anyhow?
I like to sleep. I like to wake up. But I don't like to wake up at 1:40 a.m. and not be able to get back to sleep for a few hours. Two o'clock, 3, 4... and this lying in bed is not restful. Finally I may get back to sleep at 5 and when I wake up at 7, the newspaper is waiting for me to read it. I'm not off to a good start on the day. I think I've solved this problem. When I wake up at 2 a.m., I wait for barely 1/2 hour, and if I can't get to sleep, I get up. I read some e-mails...
June 2005[Pease Porridge] What’s All This Resonance Stuff, Anyhow?
I was walking down a hallway on the top floor of NSC's building D, when something I heard made me suspicious. It sounded like a series of tiny clicks rattling around the hallway. I stopped and slapped my thigh to make a sharp sound. I heard TICK-TICK, tick-tick, tick-tick. I was surprised, because there was no obvious reason why this hallway should do this. It even had a carpeted floor. I tried the slap in several other hallways—and in tile bathrooms—and got almost none of this...
June 2004[Pease Porridge] What’s All This Mnemonic Stuff, Anyhow?
'On Old Olympus' Topmost Top, A Fat-Eared German Viewed A Hop.' Isn't it amazing? I read that back in '56 in Sinclair Lewis' Arrowsmith. That is a little rhyme to help medical students remember all the nerves in the head. I never learned all the nerves, but I think one of them was the Occipital nerve. However, the little rhyme sure does work, because I have remembered it over 46 years. I bet a number of old doctors and medical students still remember that. Tricks like...
July/August 2004[Pease Porridge] What’s All This Theme Park Stuff, Anyhow?
My colleague Jon Carroll wrote a story a while back when he was in India. An Indian friend of his said: Isn't it wonderful? Read here in this newspaper! There's going to be a new theme park that this businessman is going to develop, right here in India. And the theme of the theme park is going to be India!' Jon read the newspaper article. He thought about it. As politely as he could, he told his Indian friend: 'That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. India already has a...
May 2005[Pease Porridge] What’s All This “Woman Scientist” Stuff, Anyhow?
After the president of Harvard, Dr. Lawrence Summers, got in hot water for questioning why so many women may not have the aptitudes for science, now it is my turn to put in my two-cents worth. The aptitude of women to be good at science, or engineering, is well documented to be at a lower rate than it is for men. This has been widely published by the Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation (www.jocrf.org), which has been studying aptitudes since 1922. If you take the top 1/4 of men...
September 2004[Pease Porridge] What’s All This Clinometer Stuff, Anyhow?
When I decided to go on a bicycle trek in Nepal a few years ago, I planned to instrument the tough hills with a clinometer to measure the slopes I'd be ascending and descending. Well, designing a 'clinometer' shouldn't be Rocket Science. A weight dangling from a pivot can tell you the slope of a hill. So I set out to engineer one per these needs: A clinometer must be enclosed to read correctly despite winds. It must have good damping to reject vibration. If I'm gonna carry it to...
October 26, 2004[Pease Porridge] What’s All This Input Impedance Stuff, Anyhow?
A young teacher went to Temple. Several priests and pharisees asked him questions. They asked trick questions to try to fool him. The teacher very sweetly and correctly answered their many tricky questions. All those present were amazed at the teacher's wisdom in answering these difficult questions. Then a pharisee asked him another trick question. He drew a circuit in the dirt. "Look at this op-amp circuit. It is often used as an example of a well-balanced circuit. Have you...
March 2005[Pease Porridge] What’s All This Magazine Stuff, Anyhow?
The dictionaries have always said that a magazine is a military storage place, in a fort or ship, to keep bullets, gunpowder, shells, and other important (or dangerous) military supplies. If an enemy shell hit your magazine, you would be a goner. Moviemakers capitalise on that. Nowadays, everybody reads magazines—collections of stories on various topics and themes. There are thousands of magazines you can read. I get several technical magazines in addition to Electronic...
April 2005[Pease Porridge] What’s All This Power Stuff, Anyhow?
Sometimes a lot of power is just right. Sometimes 200 hp in a car is a lot better than 100. Sometimes even 1 hp gets a bicycle up the hill quite fast. Yet a bicycle can cruise along at 6 or 8 mph with less than 0.1 hp. That's part of the elegance of the bicycle, as an extremely efficient mode of transportation. Yet by using external sources of power, I can go uphill much faster than I can by pedaling my bike. The dollars per mile can drop way down, if I count my time at even $5...
February 2005[Pease Porridge] What’s All This Comparator Stuff, Anyhow?
There are many comparators that you can buy to provide quick (sub-microsecond) response when a large signal changes and crosses a threshold voltage, such as a reference voltage. Unfortunately, comparators don't work well when the input signals are very small. The ability to respond correctly, without offset, drift, or noise, is normally impossible to do with a comparator unless the signal is moving more than a millivolt beyond the reference voltage. And with a comparator, you can't add a...
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