Month: January 1997

Can you explain how the telephone wiring in my home works for the telephone? My …

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Can you explain how the telephone wiring in my home works for the telephone? My touch-tone phone has 4 wires, but I understand that only 2 wires are used. Does the phone use the other 2 wires for the light on the phone pad, etc.? — DS, Larkspur, CA

Your telephone performs all of its functions using only those 2 wires. The 2 extra wires are virtually never used by a single-line telephone. The only exception that I’m aware of is the old “Princess Telephone,” which had a special light powered by the extra pair of wires. In most telephones, even the power for the lighted keys comes from the 2 main wires. While the telephone is off the hook, the telephone company sends a constant DC current through those two wires. This current powers the telephone’s electronics and its lights. When you talk, the microphone causes the telephone’s electric impedance to fluctuate up and down and this variation causes sound to be reproduced in your friend’s earpiece. Pressing the dialing buttons causes similar fluctuations in impedance and the telephone company uses these tones to make the proper connections. When the telephone company rings your telephone, they send a higher voltage AC current through the two wires and the telephone’s bell rings.

Radioactive elements’ half-lives are fixed and they decay at a constant rate. Th…

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Radioactive elements’ half-lives are fixed and they decay at a constant rate. Their decay rates have been determined thanks in part to our nuclear weapons research. Under what circumstances can a radioactive element have its decay rate changed? Can the element’s radioactivity be destroyed (cancelled) by applying high temperatures? If so, how high would the temperature have to go to achieve this? — RD, Humble, TX

Since radioactivity is a feature of atomic nuclei, the only way to alter radioactivity is to alter atomic nuclei. But there aren’t many ways to change atomic nuclei. Of various atomic and subatomic particles, only a neutron can enter a nucleus easily and cause it to rearrange. However, it’s more common for a neutron to increase radioactivity than to destroy it, so that’s not a good approach. Furthermore, the only practical way to obtain neutrons is with radioactivity.

Heating a collection of nuclei can cause them to collide and rearrange. However, this process is also fraught with problems. The products of the fusion and fission events that occur when nuclei collide will probably be radioactive themselves, so that it’s unlikely that heating radioactive materials will make them less radioactive. Instead, it’s likely that heating radioactive materials will make them more radioactive. Furthermore, the temperatures at which nuclei will begin to collide are extraordinarily high. Even the smallest nuclei repel one another fiercely so that they need temperatures of 100 million degrees C or more to begin colliding effectively. Larger nuclei, such as those common in nuclear wastes, won’t collide until their temperatures exceed 1 billion degrees C. The only way to reach these temperatures is with nuclear weapons and they certainly don’t reduce the radioactivity of nearby materials. In short, the only way to get rid of radioactivity is by waiting patiently.

Why do colors fade in the sun? – RD

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Why do colors fade in the sun? – RD

While light travels as electromagnetic waves, it’s emitted and absorbed as particles called “photons.” Each photon carries with it a tiny bit of energy. The amount of energy in a photon depends on the wavelength of the light associated with it. While a photon of red light contains too little energy to cause chemical processes to occur in most molecules, a particle of violet or ultraviolet light contains enough energy to cause significant chemical damage to a typical molecule. Since sunlight contains a substantial amount of violet and ultraviolet lights, it can cause a fair amount of chemistry to occur in the molecules that absorb it. That’s why colors often fade in sunlight. Many colored molecules are relatively fragile and are damaged by photons of ultraviolet light. The portion of a dye molecule that gives it its color is called a “chromophore” and is usually the most fragile part of the molecule. Destroying its chromophore will often leave a dye molecule colorless. Exposure to sunlight was the traditional way to bleach fabrics and make them white.

What would things look like if I could see wavelengths of the spectrum other tha…

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What would things look like if I could see wavelengths of the spectrum other than just visible light (e.g., X-rays, radio waves, ultraviolet, infrared, gamma rays, etc.)? — SH, Hurricane, UT

As you looked around, you would see a general glow of radio waves, microwaves, and infrared light coming from every surface. That’s because objects near room temperature emit thermal energy as these long-wavelength forms of light. While we don’t normally see such thermal radiation unless an object is hot enough for some of it to be in the visible range, your new vision would allow you to see everything glow. The warmer an object is, the brighter its emission and the shorter the wavelengths of that emission. People would glow particularly brightly because of their warm skin.

You would also see special sources of radio waves, microwaves, and infrared light. Radio antennas, cellular telephones, and microwave communication dishes would be dazzlingly bright and infrared remote controls would light up when you pressed their buttons.

You would see ultraviolet light in sunlight and from the black lights in dance halls. But there wouldn’t be much other ultraviolet light around to see, particularly indoors. X-rays and gamma rays would be rare and you might only see them if you walked into a hospital or a dentist’s office. Gamma rays would be even rarer, visible mostly in hospitals.

How do the 2″ diagonal color LCD screens used in some of the new digital video …

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How do the 2″ diagonal color LCD screens used in some of the new digital video cameras work? — M, Waynesboro, MS

Like most liquid crystal displays (LCD), these devices use liquid crystals to alter the polarization of light and determine how much of that light will emerge from each point on the display. Liquid crystals are large molecules that orient themselves spontaneously within a liquid—much the way toothpicks tend to orient themselves parallel to one another when you pour them into box. The liquid crystals used in an LCD display are sensitive to electric fields so that their orientations and their optical properties can be affected electronically. The liquid crystals in the display occupy a thin layer between transparent electrodes and two polarizing plastic sheets. Light from a fluorescent lamp passes through a polarizing sheet, an electrode, the liquid crystal layer, another electrode, and another polarizing sheet. The orientation of the liquid crystal determines whether light from the first polarizing sheet will be able to pass through the second polarizing sheet. When electric charges are placed on the two electrodes, the liquid crystal’s orientation changes and so does light’s ability to pass through the pair of polarizing sheets.

To create a full color image, the display has many rows of electrodes on each side of the liquid crystals and a pattern of colored filters added to the sandwich. In “active” displays, there are also thin-film transistors that aid in the placement of charges on the electrodes. Overall, the display is able to select the electric charges on each side of every spot or “pixel” on the screen and can thus control the brightness of every pixel.

Is heating milk by microwave advisable? – I

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Is heating milk by microwave advisable? – I

Microwave cooking leaves no permanent mark on the food. It causes virtually no chemical damage and absolutely no radioactivity. The only drawback with heating milk by microwave is that the heating may be uneven and may denature some protein molecules in regions of the milk that become excessively hot. Since most protein molecules are disassembled by your digestion anyway, this treatment probably has no effects worth worrying about. Even with infant formula, my only concern would be the hot spots. If you carefully shake the milk after heating, so that its temperature is uniform, it should be just fine. I suspect that companies warn you not to heat milk in a microwave because they are worried that you will either not shake the milk to distribute its temperature evenly or that you will overcook it until it boils and the bottle explodes.

Please explain the concepts of magnetism pertaining to ferromagnetism, diamagnet…

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Please explain the concepts of magnetism pertaining to ferromagnetism, diamagnetism, and paramagnetism. – SC

A ferromagnetic material is one that contains intrinsic magnetic order. Iron, for example, is a ferromagnetic material—meaning that if you were to examine a microscopic region of the iron, you would find that it was highly magnetic. The magnetism in a ferromagnetic material is often hidden by a domain structure, in which microscopic magnetic regions or “domains” all point in random directions to give the material no apparent magnetism. Only when you expose the ferromagnetic material to a magnetic field does its magnetic character suddenly reveal itself. A ferromagnetic material becomes strongly magnetic when it’s exposed to a magnetic field.

A diamagnetic material is one in which the electrons begin moving when it’s place in a magnetic field. These moving electric charges create a second magnetic field that partially cancels the original field. A diamagnetic magnetic field partially shields itself from magnetism when it’s exposed to a magnetic field.

A paramagnetic material is one in which individual magnetic electrons respond magnetically to any external magnetic field. It becomes weakly magnetic when it’s exposed to a magnetic field. Unlike a ferromagnetic material, a paramagnetic material has no intrinsic magnetic order before it’s exposed to an external field.

In our busy trial court we have preserved the original cassette tapes since 1989…

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In our busy trial court we have preserved the original cassette tapes since 1989. They are kept in a relatively constant room temperature environment in our modern courthouse. Should we take any further precautions to extend the life of these tapes, considering the possibility that they may need to be replayed one day, such as in the retrial of a death penalty case that is reversed a decade after trial? I’ve heard of the practice of unwinding and rewinding tapes for this purpose, but haven’t attempted it yet. The time involved is daunting! What is your opinion? — JD, Bryan, TX

A magnetic recording tape is usually a Mylar ribbon, coated with a thin layer of plastic that’s impregnated with tiny permanent magnets. As long as it’s store away from heat and moisture, the Mylar film itself shouldn’t age. However, the layer of permanent magnets can change slightly with time. When a tape is left tightly wound on its reel for a long time, the magnetic layers can begin to affect one another—the magnetic fields from one layer of tape can alter the magnetization of the layers above and below it. The result is that sounds from one layer of tape can gradually transfer themselves weakly to the adjacent layers, creating faint echo effects. The solution to this problem is to unwind and rewind the tape, so that the layers shift slightly relative to one another. But while these echoes may be annoying in a recording of classical music, they probably aren’t important in a recording of a noisy courtroom. Unless I hear otherwise from someone reading this note, I wouldn’t worry about unwinding and rewinding your tapes. The slight imperfections that will result from transfers between layers shouldn’t affect their utility in later trials. Properly stored, I’d expect the tapes to outlive everyone involved with the trials, even without any unwinding and rewinding.

How does electricity get from the generating station to the outlet in my living …

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How does electricity get from the generating station to the outlet in my living room? — JJ, Arlington, MA

The generating station uses a large generator to transfer energy from a giant turbine to an electric current flowing through a coil of wire. Current from this generating coil then flows through the primary coil of a huge transformer, where it transfers its energy to the magnetic core of the transformer. The current then returns to the generator to obtain more energy.

The magnetic core of the transformer transfers its energy to a second current—one that is passing through the secondary coil of the transformer. Because this current consists of far fewer electric charges per second, each charge receives a very large amount of energy. This large energy per charge gives the current a high voltage and it flows very easily through a high voltage transmission line. Because the amount of power that a wire loses is proportional to the square of the current passing through it, this high-voltage, low-current electricity wastes very little power in the transmission line on its way across country to your city. When the current reaches your city, it passes through another transformer and its energy is transferred to a third current. The cross country current then returns through the transmission line to the original power station to obtain more energy from the first transformer.

This third current involves more charges per second, so each charge carries less energy and the voltage is lower. This medium voltage electricity travels to your neighborhood before passing through a final transformer. This final transformer is probably either a gray metal can on a utility pole or a green box on a nearby lawn. In passing through the final transformer, the current transfers its energy to a current which then enters your home. This last current delivers energy to your appliances and lights and then returns to the final transformer to obtain more energy.