What is a VU meter on tape deck? How does it differ from a dB meter? I know that…

Lou Bloomfield Leave a comment

What is a VU meter on tape deck? How does it differ from a dB meter? I know that the best recording is achieved when the needle hovers around the zero and that the sound distorts above zero and is barely audible the lower into the negative numbers you go, but what are the meanings of the plus and minus readings? — GF, California

VU and dB meters both measure the audio power involved in recording and they both use logarithmic scales to report that power. Because of these logarithmic scales, a factor of 10 increase in power produces an increase of 10 in both the VU reading and the dB reading. For example, -20 dB is 10 times the power of -30 dB. In both measures, the zero is chosen as the highest acceptable power—the highest power for which distortion is acceptable.

Where VU and dB differ is in how they measure audio power. VU is short for “volume units” and it is a measure of average audio power. A VU meter responds relatively slowly and considers the sound volume over a period of time. Its zero is set to the level at which there is 1% total harmonic distortion in the recorded signal. dB is short for “decibels” and it is a measure of instantaneous audio power. A dB meter responds very rapidly and considers the audio power at each instant. Its zero is set to the level at which there is 3% total harmonic distortion. Because of these differences in zero definitions, the dB meter’s zero is roughly at the VU meter’s +8. Nonetheless, both meters are important and both should be kept at or below zero to avoid significant distortion in a recording. In certain situations, such as when there are sudden loud sounds or with instruments that are very rich in harmonics, it’s possible to have the dB meter read above zero even though the VU meter remains below zero.

Please explain ideal mechanical advantage and actual mechanical advantage. How c…

Lou Bloomfield Leave a comment

Please explain ideal mechanical advantage and actual mechanical advantage. How can I demonstrate these two ideas? — S

Mechanical advantage is any process that allows you to exchange force for distance (or torque for angle) while performing a particular task. The amount of mechanical work you must do (i.e., the amount of energy you must supply) to perform that task won’t change, but the relationship of force and distance (or torque and angle) will. For example, you can increase the altitude of a wooden block by 1 meter either by lifting it straight upward 1 meter or by pushing it several meters uphill along a ramp. In the first case, you’ll have to exert a large upward force on the block but you won’t have to move it very far to complete the task. In the second case, you’ll have to exert a much smaller uphill force on the block but you’ll have to move it a long way along the ramp. If you multiply the force you exert on the block times the distance that block travels while rising 1 meter, you’ll find that it’s exactly the same in either case. You’ve simply calculated the work required to raise the block 1 meter and that work won’t change, regardless of how you perform the task! That’s the crucial issue with mechanical advantage—it doesn’t let you avoid doing the work, it just lets you do that work with a small (or larger) force exerted over a longer (or shorter) distance. In a situation involving rotation, mechanical advantage lets you do the same work with a smaller (or larger) torque exerted over a larger (or smaller) angle. In all of these cases, you’re doing the same amount of work but you’re making it more palatable by adjusting the balance between force and distance or between torque and angle.

As for actual mechanical advantage, it’s simply a recognition that any mechanical system involves imperfections. The work that you do with the help of a machine doesn’t all go toward your goal. Instead, you end up doing some work against sliding friction or air resistance and that work is lost to thermal energy. For example, when you slide a block up a ramp, friction with the ramp wastes some of your energy. If you multiply the uphill force you exert on the block while pushing it up the hill times the distance it travels along the ramp, you’ll find that you must do somewhat more work while raising the block 1 meter than you would have done by simply lifting the block directly upward that 1 meter. So ideal mechanical advantage assumes no change in the work you do while actual mechanical advantage recognizes that you’re going to end up doing extra work whenever you employ a machine to obtain mechanical advantage.

What makes a three-way touch lamp work? What makes a three-way light bulb work? …

Lou Bloomfield Leave a comment

What makes a three-way touch lamp work? What makes a three-way light bulb work? – CY

A three-way touch lamp is much like a simple touch lamp—it detects your touch by applying a high frequency alternating charge to the lamp’s surfaces and uses this fluctuating charge to measure the lamp’s electric capacitance—the ease with which charge can moved on or off the lamp’s surfaces. When you touch the lamp, the lamp’s capacitance changes and the lamp’s electronics detect this change.

In a three-way touch lamp, the lamp’s electronics control 4 different light levels alternately: dim, medium, bright, and off. How these light levels are obtained depends on the lamp. If the lamp uses a three-way light bulb, which contains two separate filaments, then it can obtain the 3 brightness levels by turning on one or both of the filaments. It uses just the small filament for dim, just the large filament for medium, and both filaments for bright. That’s exactly what a normal three-way lamp does.

But if the lamp uses a normal bulb and obtains three light levels from it, then it uses the same technique as a dimmer switch. In this technique, an electronic switching device called a triac is used to limit the times during which electric current can flow through the bulb and deliver power to it. In the bright setting, the triac permits current to flow through the bulb at all times and the bulb appears as bright as possible. But in the dim or medium settings, the triac prevents current from flowing at certain times. The triac takes advantage of the fact that the power flowing through a household lamp is alternating current—current that reverses directions 120 times a second (in the United States) for a total of 60 full cycles of reversal, over and back, each second (60 Hz). At the beginning of each current reversal, the electronic devices that control the triac start a timer. This timer allows those devices to wait a certain amount of time before they trigger the triac and allow it to begin carrying current to the light bulb. Once triggered, the triac will allow current to flow through the bulb until the next reversal of current in the power line. Thus the amount of energy that reaches the bulb during each half-cycle of the power line depends on how long the electronic devices wait before triggering the triac. The longer they wait, the less energy will reach the bulb and the dimmer it will glow. In the bright setting, the triac is triggered immediately after each current reversal so that power always flows to the bulb and it glows brightly. But in the medium and dim settings, the triac is triggered well into the half-cycle that follows the reversal. A normal dimmer gives you complete control over this delay, but a three-way touch switch only provides three preset delays. The medium setting has a medium delay while the dim setting has a long delay.

How does a “touch lamp” work?

Lou Bloomfield Leave a comment

How does a “touch lamp” work? — LAM, Enosburg Falls, VT

A touch lamp detects your touch by looking for changes in the electric properties of the lamp’s surfaces. It monitors these properties by putting a fluctuating electric charge on them. As electric current flows toward the bulb through the lamp’s wires, it passes through an electronic device that places a high frequency (about 60 kHz) alternating current onto those wires. This added current causes the lamp’s surfaces to take on a small fluctuating electric charge—first positive, then negative, then positive, over and over again. This surface charging involves electrostatic forces, which extend long distances between charged objects, and occurs even though the lamp’s surfaces aren’t directly connected to the lamp’s wires. The more surface the lamp has, the more easily it can hold that electric charge—the greater the lamp’s electric capacitance.

When you plug the lamp in, the electronic device uses its fluctuating charge to determine how easy it is to add or subtract charge from the lamp’s surfaces. In other words, it measures the lamp’s capacitance. It then begins to look for changes in that capacitance. When you touch the lamp, or even come close to its surfaces, your body effectively adds to the lamp’s surface and its capacitance increases significantly. The electronic device detects this increase in capacitance and switches the lamp’s state from on to off or from off to on. The fact that you don’t have to touch the lamp to affect its capacitance means that a touch lamp can have insulating paint on its metal surfaces yet still detect your touch. You can also buy touch lamp modules that plug into the wall and turn the lamp that’s connected to them into a touch lamp. These modules are so sensitive to capacitance changes in the lamp that you can trigger them just by touching the lamp cord.

Why can you put a can of frozen concentrate juice in the microwave? The metal do…

Lou Bloomfield Leave a comment

Why can you put a can of frozen concentrate juice in the microwave? The metal doesn’t spark or burn.

The microwaves in a microwave oven consist of electric and magnetic fields. Since electric fields push on electric charges, microwaves cause electric currents to flow through any metal objects they encounter. These movements of current don’t necessarily cause any problems in a microwave oven. In fact, metal objects only cause trouble in the microwave oven when they are so thin or narrow that they can’t tolerate the electric currents that flow through them or when they have such sharp ends that electric charges leap off them as sparks. A thin object like a twist-tie can’t tolerate the currents and becomes very hot. Its sharp ends also allow charges to leap out into the air as sparks. But the thick, rounded end of a juice concentrate can easily tolerates the currents sent through it by the microwaves and doesn’t have the sharp ends needed to send charges into the air as sparks. It doesn’t present any problem for the microwave oven.

If you stand near a microwave oven, looking at your food, is it dangerous

Lou Bloomfield Leave a comment

If you stand near a microwave oven, looking at your food, is it dangerous—tissue damage or make you blind?

Properly built and undamaged microwave ovens leak so few microwaves that they aren’t dangerous at all. Even if they did leak enough to be in violation of the safety limits, those safety limits are very conservative. While there is no reason to court disaster by holding your face right up to the microwave for hours and hours, it shouldn’t hurt you at all.

How do sound waves travel in space?

Lou Bloomfield Leave a comment

How do sound waves travel in space? — PS

When sound travels in air, it takes the form of compressions and rarefactions of that air. Similar compressions and rarefactions occur when sound travels in a liquid or in a solid. But sound can’t travel through space because space is entirely empty. Sound requires a medium in which to travel and space doesn’t contain any such medium. Astronauts talk to each other by radio during space walks. With nothing at all between them, they simply can’t hear one another directly.

How does a snow making machine work?

Lou Bloomfield Leave a comment

How does a snow making machine work? — IB, Blue Ash, OH

A snow-making machine simply sprays a fine mist of water high into the cold air overhead, so that that mist can freeze into tiny particles of ice before falling back to the ground. If the air is cold enough, the mist will solidify before it hits the ground and before it has time to evaporate into water vapor. This freezing process isn’t as simple as it sounds because water can’t turn into an ice crystal without a seed on which that crystal can grow. Forming a seed crystal is a random process in which a couple of water molecules accidentally arrange themselves in a crystalline lattice. In snow making, each water droplet has only a few seconds in which to freeze and it can easily take that long for a seed crystal to form. However, people have found that adding certain chemicals or other materials to the water before spraying it into the air can speed the formation of seed crystals and dramatically increase the fraction of water that becomes artificial snow.

What is convection?

Lou Bloomfield Leave a comment

What is convection? — DB, Corona, CA

Convection is the transfer of heat by a circulating fluid, such as air or water. This heat is carried from a hotter object to a colder object. The fluid first passes near the hotter object and receives heat. The fluid becomes warmer and more buoyant, and it’s lifted upward by the colder fluid around it—just as a hot air balloon is lifted upward by the colder air around it. The rising fluid carries the heat with it. Eventually the rising fluid spreads outward and it pass near colder objects, giving up its heat. The fluid becomes cooler and less buoyant, and soon it begins to descend back toward the ground. Eventually it’s drawn back past the hotter object and this cycle begins again.

What is a vortex?

Lou Bloomfield Leave a comment

What is a vortex? — M

A vortex is a region of fluid that’s circulating in one direction around a line passing through that region. If you imagine yourself looking along that line, you would see the fluid flowing either clockwise or counter-clockwise around the line itself. Tornadoes and whirlpools are both vortices since they involve fluids circulating in one direction around a central line.