Science of Modern Electronics | Electric Circuits, Currents, & More

By admin | January 18, 2019 |

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In the last 100 years, modern electronics have revolutionized the world. Electronic devices—which manipulate electrons or their associated fields in fundamental ways to produce a useful effect—have provided us with ubiquitous, massive computational power; allow us to communicate nearly instantly with loved ones across the globe; can flawlessly record, safeguard, and display information; and provide us with tremendously precise control of manufacturing devices and medical instruments.

Very few have any idea of how electronic devices actually work. In fact, these increasingly complex devices, which seem nearly magical to us, operate on a few basic principles that are both fascinating and easy to understand.

Now, in Understanding Modern Electronics, award-winning Professor of Physics Richard Wolfson provides a working explanation of the principles that govern electronic circuits, then shows these principles in action with devices you use every day.

In 24 lectures, Professor Wolfson combines his academic expertise, including years of teaching electronics at Middlebury College and a lifelong devotion to electronics as a hobby, in order to examine how these remarkable devices work.

Professor Richard Wolfson bypasses higher mathematics without sacrificing functional and theoretical understanding of electricity. Modern electronics emerged from electro-mechanical technology such as wires, motors, batteries, and switches with the invention of the vacuum tube—a device that made it possible to amplify electrical signals.

Over the last century, scientific theory and practical engineering have been combined to produce or adapt a host of similarly useful components that are employed in modern electronics. You’ll also learn about the mysterious and highly important physical materials known as semiconductors, so named because their ability to carry electric current is in between a conductor like copper or aluminum and an insulator like glass or paper.

Semiconductors are used to make diodes, transistors, and other components. These intriguing materials, like silicon or gallium arsenide, are usually crystalline inorganic solids that can be “doped” with other materials to give engineers precise control over their electrical properties.

Whether you’re an aspiring engineer, an enthusiastic tinkerer, or simply intellectually curious, this course will demystify the behavior and inner circuitry of electronic devices and inspire you to see technology in a whole new light.

In this excerpt from the course, examine the nuances of alternating and direct currents, see how transformers use electromagnetic induction to transform voltage levels in AC circuits, and observe the role of diodes and capacitors in regulating current. See how the DC power supplies that charge our cell phones are constructed so that they convert alternating to direct current.

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