Archive for April, 2008

on, off, on, off

Thursday, April 3rd, 2008

 

 
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Get out your magnifiers. We’re going to take a look at the tiny beginnings of the Information Age: transistors. Today, on Engineering Works!
Transistors might be the Rodney Dangerfields of the Information Age. They do the work, but the microchips get the credit. As Rodney might say, microchips wouldn’t be nothin’ without transistors.
Engineers at Bell Laboratories [...]

Radar

Friday, April 11th, 2008

 

 
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Traffic cops use it to catch you speeding. It’s a lot of other things, too. You got it — radar. Today, on Engineering Works!
Radar — radio detection and ranging — has been around since the 1930s. Radar helped protect English cities against German bombers during World War II. Now, air traffic controllers use it to [...]

Lightweight bridge

Friday, April 25th, 2008

 

 
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Modern engineers have almost always built bridges from steel and concrete. A new bridge is going high tech. We’ll check it out. Today, on Engineering Works!
The next time you drive across a big bridge, take a look at what it’s made of. Chances are it’s concrete and steel. Just about all of big bridges are. [...]