Physics Basics Series
- Basics of Classical Mechanics.
- Basics of Quantum Mechanics.
- Basics of Electrodynamics.
- Basics of Optics.
- Basics of Mathematical Tools for Physics.
- Basics of Plasma Physics.
- Basics of Solid State Physics.
Troy Stark's Science & Society Opinion Blog
Modern Technology
Short articles on modern technology from toys to tools. We love our lasers, CD players, GPS, cell phones, ATMs, mag stripes, bar code readers, computer aided design and even computer controled milling machines. This page is devoted to showing how things like these work.
At work, at play and everywhere in between We enjoy the ease, comfort and capabilities provided by modern technology. Robots build our cars, computers automate our daily repetitive tasks and machines give us power far greater than our own and communication with people and places all over the world and beyond. Most of us never know how these technologies work and even those of us that are expert in some advanced technologies might know little or nothing of others. That situation is not likely to ever change. There is far too much to know for any individual to become expert or even competent in more than a handful of the amazing technologies that make up our world.
Articles listed on this page will share some of the secrets of those technologies that you may not already be familiar with.
Finding Edges in Images -The Sobel Operator
The Sobel operator is a commonly used image processing method for finding edges in an image. You can use it to quickly find outlines of objects in a photo or video feed.
If you have ever wondered how to easily get an outline from an image, such as a photograph or even a live camera feed, this article describes a simple process using the Sobel operator. With this method you can take a photo and quickly draw just the outlines of the objects in the photo. This is a commonly used image processing operation that allows machines to find information that your brain automatically picks out, or sometimes the machine can even cut through clutter that your brain won't.
Being Shot At
Past Technology Articles
The Rogowski Coil
The Rogowski Coil. This article describes the theory of operation of a great tool for measuring fast pulsed currents or high frequency currents without direct contact.How MP3 Files Work
How do MP3 files Work? The Science and Math Behind All That Entertainment.How Magstripes Work
How do MagStripes Work? The technology behind the magnetic stripes on your credit cards. How does the magnetic stripe on the back of a credit card work?Works in Progress
Quick Science & Math References
- Our Solar System.
- Earth Facts.
- The Metric System.
- Trigonometric Identities.
- Vector & Tensor Identities.
- Explicit Forms of Vector Operators
- Light & Electromagnetic Spectrum.
- Common Laser Wavelengths.
- Human Physiology Facts.
- Human History Timeline
- Geologic Timeline
- Cambrian Explosion
- Life on Earth Timeline
- ASCII Codes and HTML Display Codes
- Thousands of HTML Symbol Codes
- HTML Symbol Codes for Greek Letters
- The Best Way to put Equations on your Web Page
Physics Basics Series
- Basics of Classical Mechanics.
- Basics of Quantum Mechanics.
- Basics of Electrodynamics.
- Basics of Optics.
- Basics of Mathematical Tools for Physics.
- Basics of Plasma Physics.
- Basics of Solid State Physics.
Math Basics Series
- Numbers
- Arithmetic
- Algebra
- Geometry
- Analysis
Technology Basics Series
- Basics of Remote Sensing.
- Basics of Digital Signal Processing.
- Critical Electronic Circuits
- Infrared Imaging Basics
Knowledge Branches
- Information Theory
- How Reading Works in the Brain
- Psychology of Learning
- Logic
WORK IN PROGRESS
- What is the Stark Effect?
- The Chemistry of Love &/or Addiction
- Critical Thinking: How to question what you see, read or hear.
- Aristotle's Prior Analytics - the birth of Logic.
- Optical Solutions, lenses that solve problems
- Fractals
- PTC - Photon Transfer Curve or Mean Variance Analysis
- 3-D Noise
- Laser Primer
- Rail Guns
- Special Relativity
- Radar Technology
- Acousto-optic Cells
- Harmonic Generation for Laser Frequency Doubling (SHG) and Tripling -using non-linear crystals.
- Measurement: Accuracy & Precision.
- Things you should know about computer modeling of physical phenomena!
- Giant Magneto-resistance
- Peltier Cooling
- Pyro-Electric Detectors
- Piezo-Electric Crystals
- Laser Speckle
- FFT and DFT the fast fourier transform and the discrete fourier transform
- Fabry Perot Etalon
- The Hydrogen Atom.
- PCA (Principal Component Analysis)
- Energy per mass in fuels such as Hydrogen, Gasoline, Kerosene, HMX etc...
- Nobel prize winning work on the CCD
- How does a CCD work and what are the normal characteristics of a CCD
- Nobel Prize Winning work on Giant Magneto-resistance
- FROG -frequency resolved optical gating
- Optical Wavefront Sensing
- THz imaging and time-domain spectroscopy
- Camera Calibration
- Laser Designators
- Resampling