Kathy Joseph's Blog, page 3
March 15, 2023
Quaternions to Vector Analysis
by Kathy Joseph
I just finished a video on a history of the quaternions and a biography of their inventor, William Rowan Hamilton. In it, I stated, I hope pretty convincingly, that the basic features of vector algebra ALL came from Hamilton: the scalar, the vector, the dot product (or, at least the negative of the dot product), the cross product, the del function (also called the Nabla function), the divergence (or at least the negative of the divergence) and the curl all were created i...
January 30, 2023
Quaternions Are Amazing and So Was William Rowan Hamilton (their creator)
Before I get into quaternions and William Rowan Hamilton and why I think both are amazing, I would like to take a couple of minutes to go over why I ended up making this video. This video started because I was working on a detailed history of Maxwell’s equations. That history is why I learned that Maxwell used quaternions in 1873 and then Heaviside and Gibbs (and others...
November 23, 2022
Why Nikola Tesla is So Famous (and Westinghouse is not)
In January of 1912, almost 20 years after the “war of the currents” was over George Westinghouse Jr. was awarded the American Institute of Electrical Engineer’s highest honor, the Edison Award, for “the development of the alternating-current system for light and power.”[1] In his introduction, the influential and delightful scientist Michael Pupin, said how great it was that “the alternating-current system …is now an almost universally adopted system, and the medal named after the man Edison who...
November 22, 2022
Protected: Why Nikola Tesla is So Famous (and Westinghouse is not)
This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:
Password:
The post Protected: Why Nikola Tesla is So Famous (and Westinghouse is not) appeared first on Kathy Loves Physics.
October 27, 2022
JJ Thompson’s Discovery of Electron: Cathode Ray Tube Experiment Explained
JJ Thomson discovered the electron in 1897 and there are tons of videos about it. However, most videos miss what JJ Thomson himself said was the motivating factor: a debate about how cathode rays move. Want to know not only how but why electrons were discovered?
Table of ContentsThe Start of JJ ThomsonHow Thomson Discovered Electrons: Trials and ErrorsThomson’s ConclusionReferencesThe Start of JJ ThomsonA short history of Thomson: Joseph John Thomso...
The Physics of How X-rays were Discovered
There are quite a few videos about how Roentgen discovered the x-ray, but most really skimp on the physics. What was he doing, why was he doing it, how did he discover the medical x-ray and why did he (correctly) conclude that he had found a high energy invisible light?
Table of ContentsThe Start: Cathode RaysRoentgen’s Discovery: How X-rays WorkReferencesThe Start: Cathode RaysIt all started on the night of November 8th of 1895. According to Roentgen, ...
The Physics behind the Current War: Edison, Tesla, & Westinghouse (AC vs. DC)
In the late 1800s there was a battle between different types of electricity, alternating and direct, that was called the war of the currents, (now a major motion picture starting my boyfriend Benedict Cumberbatch). There are thousands of videos about this conflict but this is the first, as far as I know, that covers the actual Physics of their debate as well as the crazy horse-killing history.
Table of ContentsAlternating CurrentHow a Transformer WorksThe Westingh...The Origin of the Cathode Ray Tube: Physics of the Geissler tube to the Crookes tube
Let’s start in early 1857 in a laboratory in Bonn, Germany. That is where a physics professor named Julius Plücker was working with an instrument maker named Heinrich Geissler to create odd glass tubes that were, according to Plücker, “incomparably beautiful[i].”
Geissler and Plücker didn’t know it, but these Geissler tubes would change the world. These were the precursor to cathode ray tubes (also called Crookes tubes) and without them you wouldn’t have television, the oscilloscope, or e...
How does a Generator Work & How We Figured it Out
Most of our electricity comes from power plants that use a generator to, ahem, generate the electricity. OK, then, how does a generator work? And how did anyone figure it out in the first place? It’s time to get spinning.
Table of ContentsHow Faraday’s AC WorkedThe Commutator and Its UseHow an Electromagnet was UsedHow They Made Generators WorkHow Faraday’s AC WorkedIt all started in 1832. That is when Michael Faraday published his work on his m...
How Michael Faraday Discovered Induction, The Generator, and Magnetic Fields
How did Michael Faraday make electricity with magnets? Hey, how does anyone make electricity with magnets? And what does that have to do with the creation of the idea of magnetic fields? Watch this short video and find out.
Table of ContentsFaraday’s Experiment: The StartFaraday with Electro-MagnetismMaking of Electric GeneratorFaraday’s Experiment: The StartIn 1826, an English scientist named Michael Faraday had read that another English man named W...
