existence
OCTOBER 25, 2007 (THURSDAY) – My main point today is in the last few words of this blog. Please don’t give up on me; please read all the way to the end.
Electronics is a fascinating subject to me. Although I rarely listen to Ham Radio or broadcast on it anymore, I have an Amateur Radio Operator’s license, and have had it since 1982. In order to get the license, I had to pass a test, and part of the test was about electronics.
It is said that the first discovery of moving electrons was made when someone was observing a light bulb. Using crude instruments, they discovered that the bulb was not only producing light, it was also radiating electrons. (We all know that everything material is made of molecules, which are made of atoms, and their components include electrons). The light bulb was creating an electric current in the air as the electrons in the filament heated up and broke free. They were already in the materials used to make the lighting filament, which is just a piece of matter burning up, becoming “white hot” as electricity runs through it.
Well, they found the electrons shooting through the air around light bulbs (light bulbs still emit electrons today), and immediately began trying to figure out a way to capture and utilize them. This brought about the birth of the electronic vacuum tube, or “radio tube.” You do remember the radio tube, don’t you?
What happened to the good old tube? It got replaced with the transistor. It was a great day in the 1940’s when the small but amazing transistor was invented. It could actually conduct a small electric current that could be regulated, and could be utilized to control larger currents. Miniaturization of electronics was thus introduced.
Nowadays, when you open up your TV and look at the circuits, you won’t see many transistors, because most of them are now so tiny that millions of them can fit inside an integrated circuit, also called an “IC,” or “chip,” invented by Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments in Dallas, in 1958. These little marvels make possible the electronic world in which you now live, making everything work, from your wrist watch to your automobile.
Most of you could not possibly care any less about what has been written so far in this blog. You only want to know how to turn something on and off and which buttons to press to make the thing work, whatever it is — your camera or computer. If you are like me, you probably get frustrated trying to figure out how to follow the instructions in the users manual. By the time I figure out which buttons to press, and when, when trying to record a program on my TV, the program is over.
The power that makes all this stuff work is invisible, yet I know of no one who denies its existence.
The evidence for the existence of the electron is all around you, everywhere you go.
evidence….existence….
Sound familiar?