"Wisdom begins in wonder" – Socrates
Author: Isaac Gendler
Flood Control
07/10/18
“How can we make our built infrastructure resilient to unpredictable floods?”
As the climate continues to warm, floods such as those in Houston are becoming more common. To act in accord with climate change adaptation, societies can make implement flood control into their infrastructure. This includes measures such as constructing floodgates or zoning buildings away from flood zones.
Avedøre Power Station
07/09/18
“What is the most efficient power station in the world?”
Power stations are not usually known to be efficient. But some can break this boundary. The Avedøre Power Station in Denmark is a combined heat and power station which utilize as much as 94% of the energy in the fuel and convert 49% of the fuel energy into electricity.
Band-Pass Filters
07/08/18
“How can we combine a low-pass and a high-pass filter?”
High-pass and low-pass filters are great for attenuating signals to certain extreme frequencies. However, sometimes we would like to only have a certain range of frequencies neither high nor low present instead. This is where we can use a band-pass filter, which limits the frequency range to a certain bandwidth.
Dither
07/07/18
“How can we fix signal noise by inducing noise?”
When converting a signal from a higher-bit to a lower-bit resolution, unpleasant noise can be induced. To fix this, we can add in some low-volume noise called Dither before the conversion, effectively eliminating the truncation error. Dithering is commonly used in audio sampling during file compression.
Demodulation
07/05/18
“How can we extract information from a signal?”
Modulation is amazing for transmitting signals along great distances. However, in order to retrieve their information we have to revert them back to their original form. This can be done with Demodulation, usually done by multiplying the received signal by a signal identical to the Carrier Signal to rectify it.
Modulation
07/05/18
“How can we transmit information through signals across long distances?”
Audio signals are great for transmitting information from one place to another. However, they lack the ability to travel far. So how can we get around this problem? Well, radio frequencies happen to be very capable of traveling great distances. So why don’t we merge our audio frequency Modulation Signal with a radio frequency Carrier Wave to get a new, information-rich, distance capable Modulated-Carrier Signal? This is the idea behind Modulation and is one of the most fundamental parts of radio transmissions.
The Physics of a Fireworks Explosion
07/04/18
“What causes fireworks to explode?”
On 4th of July, Americans are used to seeing fireworks light up the night sky. However, have you ever wondered how exactly do they work? Well, let us use our scientific mindsets to find out. If we investigate, then we will find out that fireworks contain gunpowder in a container surrounded by a Launch Container. When a Lift Charge ignites and propels the container into the sky, there will be a time delay until it reaches its apex, at which it will explode and release a myriad of different colors!
Have a great 4th of July everyone with lots of V/I to the current regime!
Loss Functions
07/03/18
“How can we see the cost of some data?”
When we are working with data, we often want to pick the best value. However, it can often be hard to quantify which value has the highest related cost. So how can we use our scientific problem? Well, we can use something called a Loss Function which maps all variables to a particular cost.
Fitness Functions
07/02/18
“How can we evaluate a solution as a single figure of merit?”
In many fields of science, one of the most important things to do is to evaluate which solution function to a given dataset is the best. However, quantifying this can be very difficult. So how can we use our scientific mindset to solve this problem? Well, we can simply use something called a Fitness Function that can summarize all functions as a single figure of merit. With an easily accessible and quantified set of possible functions, we can pick the best one from the stack. Fitness functions are commonly used in Data Science where there can be a manifold of possible solutions.
Isaac's Science Blog 