Geek Poetry

Many times I have extolled the high quality of QST authors' knowledge and writing skills. H. Ward Silver writes the "Hands-On Radio" column which usually features circuit and system design and theory topics. It often includes, gasp, mathematics. His July 2013 article is titled "Phasors, Part One." It promises to be a good series. The last paragraph says, "There is a final way to describe the signal - the exponential form in which it is represented as V ej^Θ. This form comes from the mathematics behind Euler's equation in which the coordinates of our points are miraculously shown to be equivalent to ej^Θ=cosΘ +j sinΘ. The serious and beautiful math behind this equation lies at the heart of much electrical engineering and leads to the jaw-dropping Euler's identity: e^jπ = -1 which unites the two most widely used transcendental number (e and π), imaginary numbers (j), negation and unity. Not bad for a moving point in a simple circle, huh?" Beautiful. After reading it Melanie asked why my eyes were suddenly red. "Allergies," I explained.

Posted June 2013

Crane Aerospace & Electronics (RF & Microwave) - RF Cafe Website

RF Cafe began life in 1996 as "RF Tools" in an AOL screen name web space totaling 2 MB. Its primary purpose was to provide me with ready access to commonly needed formulas and reference material while performing my work as an RF system and circuit design engineer. The World Wide Web (Internet) was largely an unknown entity at the time and bandwidth was a scarce commodity. Dial-up modems blazed along at 14.4 kbps while tying up your telephone line, and a lady's voice announced "You've Got Mail" when a new message arrived...