Catalog Search Results
Pub. Date
2022.
Language
English
Description
Explore the earliest electronic computers, including Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine. Although Babbage was not able to completely build it out before his death, his "engine" was based on the same four components that define computers today—input device, some type of memory to store data and temporary calculations, a calculating processor, and an output device.
Pub. Date
2022.
Language
English
Description
Go outside and find an outcrop—a roadcut, cliff face, or other site where rocks are exposed. These are ideal places for practicing field geology. Professor Cotter gives tips on safety, maps, tools, and techniques. A notebook and careful record-keeping are essential. Amateur geologists can make important discoveries, so field geology is your chance to advance knowledge while enjoying the outdoors.
Pub. Date
2022.
Language
English
Description
Visit the beach with a geologist's eyes and see how the interaction of waves, ocean currents, and winds lead to the ebb and flow of sediments and blending of landforms. Consider the four types of waves and what they reveal about the ocean floor just offshore. Also, zero in on individual grains of sand, identifying their minerals and tracing their origin. Reflect on why beaches are sandy at all.
Pub. Date
2022.
Language
English
Description
Explore the electronics in a typical home through this episode's virtual scavenger hunt. Watch while Dr. Bottomley takes apart a hair dryer, a CD player, a computer CPU, and other machines. You'll learn about the many electronic components you'll find inside—resistors, capacitors, inductors, transistors, integrated circuits, electro-mechanical switches, and more.
Pub. Date
2022.
Language
English
Description
Check out limestone, one of nature's most amazing rocks, with medical, economic, and sightseeing benefits. Not to mention, limestone provides insight into environments eons ago. Examine its chemistry and the ways it forms. Survey different kinds of limestone, including types that preserve detailed fossils. Finally, look at sinkholes and caves, which occur in limestone karst topography.
Pub. Date
2022.
Language
English
Description
Discover the four revolutions in electrical engineering that have brought major opportunities and benefits to masses of people in just the past 150 years. Learn, specifically, what each of the four periods brought and the basic properties of the electron and electric circuits on which our entire electrified world is based.
Pub. Date
2022.
Language
English
Description
Geomorphology is the study of landscapes and their individual landforms. Learn the five major influences on landscape formation. Use this background to tour the United States, which is a remarkable laboratory of geomorphology with features such as the Appalachian and Rocky Mountains, the Grand Canyon and Channeled Scablands, and more.
Pub. Date
2022.
Language
English
Description
With the advent of logic gates that could be assembled to perform mathematical or logical calculations, engineers could build up from very simple transistors and diodes to a powerful graphic calculator or complex system of facial recognition. Learn about why the numerical basis for logic gates is binary, and how they can be combined to form logic gate circuits.
Pub. Date
2022.
Language
English
Description
Metamorphic rocks form under conditions halfway between those of sedimentary and igneous rocks. A good analogy is the process of glacier formation that turns snow into dense, interlocking crystals of ice. Focus on foliated metamorphic rocks, such as slate and gneiss, which have lineation patterns. Geologists can read these patterns to reconstruct ancient mountain ranges and plate boundaries.
Pub. Date
2022.
Language
English
Description
Investigate glaciers, which now cover about 10% of Earth's land area; 25,000 years ago, they covered 30%. Learn how to spot evidence of past glaciation—from sculpted valleys in Yosemite National Park, to the cliffs at Vicksburg, Mississippi (which formed far from glaciers), to Minnesota's 10,000 lakes. Dig into the physics of glaciers: how they develop and the forces they exert.
Pub. Date
2022.
Language
English
Description
Soil may be the most important geologic resource on the planet. Discover how geologists classify soils, focusing on the concept of soil horizons, which are distinct layers that often vary in composition, color, and texture. Analyze how this cross section, which signals soil fertility, differs depending on the type of biome. Learn how soils form and how easily they are destroyed by erosion.
Pub. Date
2022.
Language
English
Description
Rivers are the key to understanding why many landscapes look the way they do. Study how rivers form, how they sculpt the land, how water and sediment move in a river, and how rivers change course over time. Rivers also create habitats for plants and animals, both of which influence the landscape. Finally, signs of vanished rivers tell the story of geologic events in the deep past.
Pub. Date
2022.
Language
English
Description
Dr. Bottomley takes you on a virtual vacation to Rwanda to highlight myriad examples of electrical engineering all around the world. From your garage door opener to airport security, the technologies developed by electrical engineers are all around you before you even board the plane. But it's the electronics you'll find in an isolated game park that might really surprise you.
Pub. Date
2022.
Language
English
Description
The development of the transistor was motivated by the need for a device that could amplify signals. How batteries could convert chemical energy to electrical energy was also developed. Learn how the emergence of these two technologies have allowed us to move from electric circuits to electronic circuits, in which one circuit controls another.
Pub. Date
2022.
Language
English
Description
Stressing that he is not a medical doctor, Professor Cotter delves into the healthful and harmful effects of geologically sourced substances. Some have proven benefits, such as the antibacterial properties of salt and copper. Others can be deadly. For example, radon, a gaseous product of radioactive decay, causes lung cancer. Asbestos, a fibrous silicate mineral, is similarly dangerous to breathe.
Pub. Date
2022.
Language
English
Description
The entire communication system between our brain and each of our senses is electrochemical, with each of our senses acting as a sensor that emits electrochemical outputs. Learn how this aspect of the body opens the door to electrical engineering solutions for medical problems—from cochlear implants to heart pacemakers to defibrillators.
Pub. Date
2022.
Language
English
Description
Electronic sensors—instruments that detect some type of physical quantity—have been around for more than 130 years, ever since the invention of the electric thermostat. Explore today's proliferation of sensors all around us and discover their basic similarities as they convert signals into electrical quantities that can be used to take action.
Pub. Date
2022.
Language
English
Description
The most highly prized rocks among non-geologists are gemstones. This episode covers all 12 birthstones, plus other gems, probing the shifting categories of precious and semi-precious gems. You learn how gems form and where to find them. Even more difficult to find are meteorites. Hear tips for identifying these extraterrestrial rocks, which are unlike anything native to Earth.
Pub. Date
2022.
Language
English
Description
Learn what it's like to walk on barely cooled lava from an active volcano—one of many fascinating geologic experiences you can have in volcanic landscapes. Examine the different types of volcanoes and volcanic rocks, and which active sites are safe to explore and which you should avoid. In field geology you should be prepared, so review the special precautions to take when visiting volcanoes.
Pub. Date
2022.
Language
English
Description
From the moment your phone alarm wakes you in the morning until you turn off the lights at night, almost everything you do—cooking, working, driving, checking the news—is possible because of one simple fact: electrons carry energy. Consider the two ways electrons use their energy-carrying ability to create electricity.
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