Sunday, April 4, 2021

Would be possible to generate artificial gravitational waves that could be detected with the current detectors (LIGO, VIRGO)?

There has been a stunning revolution in astronomy over the past ~6 years with the detection of gravitational waves by the LIGO and VIRGO consortium.  Now that we are detecting "naturally" made gravitational waves, I've been wondering could we generate them artificially - and detect them?

Would be possible to generate artificial gravitational waves that could be detected with the current detectors (LIGO, VIRGO)?  Short version - seems like no.  Sources that have currently been detected are mergers of black holes and neutron stars that are 10's to 100's of megaparsecs away, so first I consider reducing the mass and having the source be closer - and this still requires incredibly large masses moving very fast (now in close dangerously close proximity!)

I also tried a quick idea about using motion of electrons within atoms to generate gravitational waves, but electron motion is not that much faster, and the mass of the electrons is much too small.  Motion of atoms within molecules would not achieve the required speeds and thus would require even more mass.

Sunday, January 3, 2021

Understanding MOSFETs for use in a thermostat

Basic MOSFET background and operation

MOSFET is basically a switch that can be controlled electronically - it's an acronym for Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor.  Here is the electronic diagram of a MOSFET, note it has 3 leads labelled D, G, S: