@Joseph "yeah, just saw it a few minutes ago. i was hoping we might be starting to get through to him that this isn't just a personal blog; looks like it's going to take a bit more explanation :/" I'm sorry, was this directed to me?
initially we were planning on using a triode as an oscillator... it didn't work and our teacher said he didn't know how to make it work
then we tried using a triode as an amplifier... that didn't work either, and our teacher suggested we just give up in the triode and use a diode
so then we collected some data on a planar diode, varying voltage and measuring current, then measuring thermionic current
that all went well, but here's the problem: our teacher suggested we analyze the data and compare to expected values for both thermionic emission and overall current
for the former, he suggested Richardson's Law, and for the latter, Child's law
it turns out that we can do neither; Richardson's Law requires temperature of the filament, which we can't measure, and Child's law gives results about 6 orders of magnitude off of our results... obviously not applicable
the setup is a pretty simple circuit, just a diode, high voltage output, low voltage heater, and an ammeter and voltmeter in between. Nothing wrong there, just I don't know what to do with my data anymore.
well, I was planning on comparing my results to Richardson's Law and Child's Law, but the former is simply not possible, and the latter is way off. Unless my teacher says I can write a report saying "Child's law does not apply" (which he may), I'm back to square one.
the problem with that is we just can't measure temperature. It's not logistically possible for us (i.e. we lack the tools). Also, how do you know this? I haven't even heard of Richardson's law until before today.
commando, you make the following; Get a long wire(10 M; Coil it if you want) and measure the Voltage drop at different tempertures(Room/Iced/Heated) It doesn't matter if you cannot properly measure the temps.
You will oveserve that the voltage drop decreases with temperature.
ah, perhaps I was misleading in my wording: the objective, primarily is to do something with a diode. Richardson's law was just one of the possibilities.
also, how did you learn this stuff? It seems that everybody knows more than me in everything :S I really don't get it (how they've already learnt that much, that is).
hmm... I've only taken a simple game programming course two years ago and a Stanford Cosmology thing last year. Too bad I already knew almost everything in the cosmology course :/
You have an AC Source, any AC source. You rectify the current to DC. However since the current is a waveform, while it switches you would also have that wave current in your dc side
So you add a capacitor.
A capacitor is measure in farads and it can store and block currents.
only in English, where we do some independent reading and writing. I decided to reread Notes From Underground (my favourite book). Great stuff. Read Crime and Punishment too.
dare I say you'll likely miss some parts of it when you're gone? I'm graduating and I'm feeling like I'll miss some of it: the teachers, the friends, etc.
of the questions on the site that bring in traffic
it appears my question about music downloading is #1
lol
a good way to increase traffic would be to make sure all questions have commonly searched titles, and contain the kind of stuff people will search for
though taken too far that would make the questions bad. i.e. "is it illegal to download music" is probably way up there in search frequency, but that's not a good question here
@fabianhjr my teacher just told me to use what I have and analyze what I can. Basically determine if the 3/2 exponent relationship applies, whether (qualitatively), thermionic emission increases with voltage, etc. I can't do anything particularly specific, but my teacher said he had no ideas apart from general analysis.