Virgin Physicists

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27589038

417 points · 37 comments · view on lemmy.world

37 Comments

NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world · 65 pts · 1y (4 replies)

First of all, why are they in the chip aisle looking for resistors? Everybody knows they're in the bread aisle...

Tolookah@discuss.tchncs.de · 33 pts · 1y

If you're breadboarding this, you've already lost

Routhinator@startrek.website · 12 pts · 1y (2 replies)

He's going to make potato chip resistors to get the right number of course.

Blum0108@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1y (1 reply)

Just count the ripples!

SkybreakerEngineer@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1y

Careful, capacitors reduce ripples

yucandu@lemmy.world · 29 pts · 1y (5 replies)

I used to make shunt resistors out of a pencil and a piece of paper. Rub pencil all over paper, cut strips to size of required resistance.

EDIT: I mean megaohm resistors not shunt resistors. 20MOhm for DIY theramin.

SupaTuba@lemm.ee · 11 pts · 1y

I admire it but also...wtf lol

jerkface@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 1y (1 reply)

I made a potentiometer with paper and graphite clay once

TangledHyphae@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y

Confuses me that anybody would downvote you for this. I've made makeshift capacitors out of rolled aluminum foil. It's dumb, but it worked for what I wanted (triggering a trackpad via stepper motors for testing microcontroller code.) Plus I just wanted to see if it even worked. Life = science experiments.

xthexder@l.sw0.com · 3 pts · 1y

This is exactly how high precision resistors are calibrated. A laser is usually used to notch out bits of the resistor to tune it after it's made.

RogueBanana@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 1y

That's cool, could you share some photos? The theramin I mean

JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works · 27 pts · 1y (6 replies)

There is if you have a potentiometer and a steady enough hand!

muntedcrocodile@lemm.ee · 18 pts · 1y

U probably need a climate controlled box as well.

SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org · 3 pts · 1y (4 replies)

Can you even measure that accurately? Like is it physically possible?

xthexder@l.sw0.com · 4 pts · 1y

Based on some rough calculations... no. A precision of 0.0000000000001 ohms is 1000x less than the resistance of 1um of copper with a diameter of 1cm (A piece of wire 10,000x wider than it is long). I'm sure a few molecules of air between your contact points would cause more noise in the measurement.

Adalast@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1y (2 replies)

I thought it had to do with physicists working off theoretical calculations finding precise values for the circuit and not realizing that components come in discrete values.

anomnom@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 1y (1 reply)

Yeah, but they could just calculate the right mix of parallel and series discrete resistors to get there.

It’s gonna make a long BOM though.

Adalast@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1y

Lol, I was actually going to add that but decided it would be too pedantic if I said it myself.

Zagorath@aussie.zone · 26 pts · 1y (7 replies)

What's the significance of that number? It's less than 0.1 away from tau, but somehow I doubt that's it...

easily3667@lemmus.org · 33 pts · 1y (1 reply)
[ removed ]
Ziglin@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1y

An experimental physicist should know as far as I know meanwhile a real (theoretical) physicist would probably not even touch numbers that have those scary decimals.

AlbinoPython@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1y (4 replies)

I can't be arsed to check but I think it's 2 pi which is useful when dealing with sine waves.

Zagorath@aussie.zone · 0 pts · 1y (3 replies)

2 pi is tau, which is what I said it's less than 0.1 away from, but still not equal to.

TangledHyphae@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y (2 replies)
Zagorath@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 1y (1 reply)

For me, it was this video. It came out shortly after I graduated high school, and though I was pretty good at maths, I struggled to really conceptualise the fundamental intuition behind trigonometric functions and the (polar) complex plane. Instead, I was relying on brute memorisation of the unit triangles. Learning about tau and how it relates just instantly caused everything to click with me.

TangledHyphae@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y

That's a fantastic video. I follow Numberphile but never saw this one, thanks for sharing.

skisnow@lemmy.ca · 23 pts · 1y (1 reply)

Simple, all you need is a 6 ohm resistor and a 0.18457216 ohm resistor in series.

Spacehooks@reddthat.com · 3 pts · 1y

No just get a bunch in parallel!

A_A@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 1y

Fixed resistors
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistor
The TCR of foil resistors is extremely low, and has been further improved over the years. One range of ultra-precision foil resistors offers a TCR of 0.14 ppm/°C, tolerance ±0.005%, long-term stability (1 year) 25 ppm, (3 years) 50 ppm (further improved 5-fold by hermetic sealing), stability under load (2000 hours) 0.03%, thermal EMF 0.1 μV/°C, noise −42 dB, voltage coefficient 0.1 ppm/V, inductance 0.08 μH, capacitance 0.5 pF.

Quantum based resistors :
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Hall_effect
Quantum Hall effect →
Applications →
Electrical resistance standards :

(...) Later, the 2019 revision of the SI fixed exact values of h and e, resulting in an exact
RK = h/e^2^ = 25812.80745... Ω.

(this is precise to at least 10 significant digits)

Quantum Ampere Standard
https://www.nist.gov/noac/technology/current-and-voltage/quantum-ampere-standard
.
https://www.nist.gov/noac/technology/current-and-voltage

(...) Quantum-based measurements for voltage and current are moving toward greater miniaturization (...)

(there also been research for defining a quantum based volt standard)

Naich@lemmings.world · 11 pts · 1y (1 reply)

A 6.2R in parallel with a 2.5K is pretty close.

Tolookah@discuss.tchncs.de · 9 pts · 1y

Add in a 400k and you're better than most tolerances you can find

Fleur_@hilariouschaos.com · 10 pts · 1y

This implies a physicist would do anything practical ever

murd0x@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 1y

Ohm no !

Spacehooks@reddthat.com · 3 pts · 1y (2 replies)

Love how there are so many actual solutions in The comments

frezik@midwest.social · 3 pts · 1y

But not really. At this level of precision, the heat from electricity passing through it would throw off the actual resistance value.

realitista@lemm.ee · 3 pts · 1y

Bet they're all engineers.

TangledHyphae@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y

Lol this one was great, thanks for sharing. My partner teaches physics and I do EE on the side, I like rubbing these in her face sometimes.

Corno@lemm.ee · 1 pts · 1y

That's revolting.