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πŸ”— Two capacitor paradox

πŸ”— Electronics

The two capacitor paradox or capacitor paradox is a paradox, or counterintuitive thought experiment, in electric circuit theory. The thought experiment is usually described as follows: Two identical capacitors are connected in parallel with an open switch between them. One of the capacitors is charged with a voltage of V i {\displaystyle V_{i}} , the other is uncharged. When the switch is closed, some of the charge Q = C V i {\displaystyle Q=CV_{i}} on the first capacitor flows into the second, reducing the voltage on the first and increasing the voltage on the second. When a steady state is reached and the current goes to zero, the voltage on the two capacitors must be equal since they are connected together. Since they both have the same capacitance C {\displaystyle C} the charge will be divided equally between the capacitors so each capacitor will have a charge of Q 2 {\displaystyle {Q \over 2}} and a voltage of V f = Q 2 C = V i 2 {\displaystyle V_{f}={Q \over 2C}={V_{i} \over 2}} . At the beginning of the experiment the total initial energy W i {\displaystyle W_{i}} in the circuit is the energy stored in the charged capacitor:

W i = 1 2 C V i 2 {\displaystyle W_{i}={1 \over 2}CV_{i}^{2}} .

At the end of the experiment the final energy W f {\displaystyle W_{f}} is equal to the sum of the energy in the two capacitors

W f = 1 2 C V f 2 + 1 2 C V f 2 = C V f 2 = C ( V i 2 ) 2 = 1 4 C V i 2 = 1 2 W i {\displaystyle W_{f}={1 \over 2}CV_{f}^{2}+{1 \over 2}CV_{f}^{2}=CV_{f}^{2}=C({V_{i} \over 2})^{2}={1 \over 4}CV_{i}^{2}={1 \over 2}W_{i}}

Thus the final energy W f {\displaystyle W_{f}} is equal to half of the initial energy W i {\displaystyle W_{i}} . Where did the other half of the initial energy go?

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πŸ”— Bucket Argument for Absolute Space

πŸ”— Physics

Isaac Newton's rotating bucket argument (also known as Newton's bucket) was designed to demonstrate that true rotational motion cannot be defined as the relative rotation of the body with respect to the immediately surrounding bodies. It is one of five arguments from the "properties, causes, and effects" of "true motion and rest" that support his contention that, in general, true motion and rest cannot be defined as special instances of motion or rest relative to other bodies, but instead can be defined only by reference to absolute space. Alternatively, these experiments provide an operational definition of what is meant by "absolute rotation", and do not pretend to address the question of "rotation relative to what?" General relativity dispenses with absolute space and with physics whose cause is external to the system, with the concept of geodesics of spacetime.

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πŸ”— The Lonely Runner Conjecture

πŸ”— Mathematics

In number theory, specifically the study of Diophantine approximation, the lonely runner conjecture is a conjecture about the long-term behavior of runners on a circular track. It states that n {\displaystyle n} runners on a track of unit length, with constant speeds all distinct from one another, will each be lonely at some timeβ€”at least 1 / n {\displaystyle 1/n} units away from all others.

The conjecture was first posed in 1967 by German mathematician JΓΆrg M. Wills, in purely number-theoretic terms, and independently in 1974 by T. W. Cusick; its illustrative and now-popular formulation dates to 1998. The conjecture is known to be true for 7 runners or less, but the general case remains unsolved. Implications of the conjecture include solutions to view-obstruction problems and bounds on properties, related to chromatic numbers, of certain graphs.

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πŸ”— Beer distribution game

πŸ”— Business πŸ”— Games

The beer distribution game (also known as the beer game) is a type of gamification that is used to experience typical coordination problems of a supply chain process. It reflects a role-play simulation where several participants play with each other. The game represents a supply chain with a non-coordinated process where problems arise due to lack of information sharing. This game outlines the importance of information sharing, supply chain management and collaboration throughout a supply chain process. Due to lack of information, suppliers, manufacturers, sales people and customers often have an incomplete understanding of what the real demand of an order is. The most interesting part of the game is that each group has no control over another part of the supply chain. Therefore, each group has only significant control over their own part of the supply chain. Each group can highly influence the entire supply chain by ordering too much or too little which can lead to a bullwhip effect. Therefore, the order taking of a group also highly depends on decisions of the other groups.

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πŸ”— Crystal Detector

πŸ”— Radio

A crystal detector is an obsolete electronic component used in some early 20th century radio receivers that consists of a piece of crystalline mineral which rectifies the alternating current radio signal. It was employed as a detector (demodulator) to extract the audio modulation signal from the modulated carrier, to produce the sound in the earphones. It was the first type of semiconductor diode, and one of the first semiconductor electronic devices. The most common type was the so-called cat whisker detector, which consisted of a piece of crystalline mineral, usually galena (lead sulfide), with a fine wire touching its surface.

The "asymmetric conduction" of electric current across electrical contacts between a crystal and a metal was discovered in 1874 by Karl Ferdinand Braun. Crystals were first used as radio wave detectors in 1894 by Jagadish Chandra Bose in his microwave experiments. Bose first patented a crystal detector in 1901. The crystal detector was developed into a practical radio component mainly by G. W. Pickard, who began research on detector materials in 1902 and found hundreds of substances that could be used in forming rectifying junctions. The physical principles by which they worked were not understood at the time they were used, but subsequent research into these primitive point contact semiconductor junctions in the 1930s and 1940s led to the development of modern semiconductor electronics.

The unamplified radio receivers that used crystal detectors were called crystal radios. The crystal radio was the first type of radio receiver that was used by the general public, and became the most widely used type of radio until the 1920s. It became obsolete with the development of vacuum tube receivers around 1920, but continued to be used until World War II and remains a common educational project today thanks to its simple design.

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πŸ”— Nicaraguan Sign Language

πŸ”— Languages πŸ”— Deaf πŸ”— Nicaragua

Nicaraguan Sign Language (ISN; Spanish: Idioma de SeΓ±as de Nicaragua) is a sign language that was largely spontaneously developed by deaf children in a number of schools in western Nicaragua in the 1970s and 1980s. It is of particular interest to the linguists who study it because it offers a unique opportunity to study what they believe to be the birth of a new language.

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πŸ”— Charrette

πŸ”— Architecture πŸ”— Urban studies and planning

A charrette (American pronunciation: ), often Anglicized to charette or charet and sometimes called a design charrette, is an intense period of design or planning activity.

The word charrette may refer to any collaborative session in which a group of designers draft a solution to a design problem.

While the structure of a charrette varies, depending on the design problem and the individuals in the group, charrettes often take place in multiple sessions in which the group divides into sub-groups. Each sub-group then presents its work to the full group as material for further dialogue. Such charrettes serve as a way of quickly generating a design solution while integrating the aptitudes and interests of a diverse group of people. The general idea of a charrette is to create an innovative atmosphere in which a diverse group of stakeholders can collaborate to "generate visions for the future".

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πŸ”— Cippi of Melqart

πŸ”— History πŸ”— Ancient Near East πŸ”— Malta πŸ”— Phoenicia

The Cippi of Melqart are a pair of Phoenician marble cippi that were unearthed in Malta under undocumented circumstances and dated to the 2nd century BC. These are votive offerings to the god Melqart, and are inscribed in two languages, Ancient Greek and Phoenician, and in the two corresponding scripts, the Greek and the Phoenician alphabet. They were discovered in the late 17th century, and the identification of their inscription in a letter dated 1694 made them the first Phoenician writing to be identified and published in modern times. Because they present essentially the same text (with some minor differences), the cippi provided the key to the modern understanding of the Phoenician language. In 1758, the French scholar Jean-Jacques BarthΓ©lΓ©my relied on their inscription, which used 17 of the 22 letters of the Phoenician alphabet, to decipher the unknown language.

The tradition that the cippi were found in Marsaxlokk was only inferred by their dedication to Heracles, whose temple in Malta had long been identified with the remains at Tas-SilΔ‘. The Grand Master of the Order of the Knights Hospitaller, Fra Emmanuel de Rohan-Polduc, presented one of the cippi to the AcadΓ©mie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in 1782. This cippus is currently in the Louvre Museum in Paris, while the other rests in the National Museum of Archaeology in Valletta, Malta. The inscription is known as KAI 47.

πŸ”— Immunity-aware programming

πŸ”— Computing

When writing firmware for an embedded system, immunity-aware programming refers to programming techniques which improve the tolerance of transient errors in the program counter or other modules of a program that would otherwise lead to failure. Transient errors are typically caused by single event upsets, insufficient power, or by strong electromagnetic signals transmitted by some other "source" device.

Immunity-aware programming is an example of defensive programming and EMC-aware programming. Although most of these techniques apply to the software in the "victim" device to make it more reliable, a few of these techniques apply to software in the "source" device to make it emit less unwanted noise.

πŸ”— Shot tower

πŸ”— Architecture πŸ”— Firearms πŸ”— Metalworking

A shot tower is a tower designed for the production of small diameter shot balls by freefall of molten lead, which is then caught in a water basin. The shot is primarily used for projectiles in shotguns, and also for ballast, radiation shielding and other applications where small lead balls are useful.

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