My Quarks

Electron quarks may exist.  If protons are made of three proton quarks, then perhaps electrons are made of three electron quarks.  Symmetry considerations would seem to indicate that the electron might have an internal structure similar to the internal structure of a proton.  We are asked to believe that neutrons have mass from three quarks and no electric charge.  We are asked to believe that protons have mass from three quarks plus electric charge from three quarks. In this same vein, due to symmetry considerations, perhaps electrons have the charge of minus three electron quarks.  At any rate it seems that electrons have some type of internal structure as shown in this blowtorch experiment. Click the link to skip over this whimsical post.

Previous attempts to show that electrons have no temperature, and little or no specific heat, have been studying the relationship between an electron and the atom nucleus.  Very little consideration was given to the idea that an electron might have specific heat and temperature related to it's own internal structure.  Free electrons, or conduction electrons populating an electric conductor inside of solid metal, do not associate with any one single atom nucleus.  Therefore the temperature and specific heat of free electrons must be independent of any other relationship of the electron with something else.

In the circuit diagram shown, the silicon NPN transistor is acting as a blowtorch heating up the electron current as it flows through the transistor.  An improved circuit has a thermalizing junction.  Hot electrons from the silicon NPN transistor will run through a short length of copper wire and then appear in the thermalizing junction that "Diode B" represents.  The silicon "Diode B" will conduct this heat from the hot electrons into a heat sink.  The heat will go right in to the solid silicon.  In this case the "Diode B" doesn't add any heat, and a lot of the heat energy can flow out of the electron and into the thermalizing junction. 

As a result the next transistor which is a PNP transistor, will catch a load of room-temperature electrons, rather than hot electrons.  The addition of "Diode B" in this circuit eliminates a lot of those heating effects in the next transistor and as a result the PNP transistor becomes quite reliable.

fin.

My Bagel Pizza

To make some bagel pizza, toast the bagel first.  A broiler will toast one side only and this is preferred.  The broiler is located in a compartment underneath the oven. 
Use oven mitts to remove the pan from the oven.  Next add some spaghetti sauce.  Use a lot of sauce and prefer the large chunks of mushroom or vegetables.

Add some cheeses of your choice.  Parm!

Next, back into the broiler in order to toast the cheese. Again, always use oven mitts when working near the oven.   View of broiler drawer beneath the oven. 
 

Allow to cool a long time, then enjoy.

My Blowtorch Experiment

A classic science experiment requires the student to determine the direction of electric current flow in a metal wire. A professor will attach a battery to a loop of wire, then the student will attempt to determine which way the battery plus and minus are connected to the wire. The student isn’t allowed to see the battery, which is hidden. The student is provided with nothing. Here is a novel way to find out which way the electricity is flowing through the metal wire.

The student will request or bring a blowtorch, a spark igniter, and two different flavors of perfume. This example uses vanilla and peppermint perfumes. Vanilla perfume is placed toward the right end of the bare wire, peppermint perfume is placed toward the left end of the bare wire, then the perfume bottles are removed from the room. As the bare wire is cold, there isn’t much odor from the perfumes.

The next step is a heat hazard, so be careful or ask a grownup for assistance. Start the blowtorch with the spark igniter and heat up the center of the bare wire until it glows cherry red. The temperature distribution in the wire will be a bell shaped curve

Bell Shaped Curve showing temperature distribution in the bare wire while the electric current is zero.

Next, the professor will attach a D battery (1.5 volts) to the loop of wire. As the charge carriers (electrons) move from the battery minus to battery plus, through the bare wire, those electrons will heat up while passing through the cherry red portion of the bare wire. The resulting hot electrons will heat up one end of the bare wire, and one of the two odors will evaporate from the bare wire. There will be a skewed temperature distribution.

Because of the odor, either peppermint or vanilla in this case, the student will be able to know which way the electric current is flowing through the wire. Hence the student will be able to tell the professor which way the D battery is connected to the loop of wire. A strong scent of vanilla will indicate that the electrons are traveling from left to right through the bare wire. The professor will probably accept this as a valid proof and declare the student’s experiment to be a success.

An existing tradition is a belief that electrons don’t contribute to specific heat of a solid. Such as this reference for example. The idea that electrons don’t have temperature or specific heat was a simplifying assumption that was made by scientists such as Navier and Stokes who didn’t have computers, they did everything with pencil and paper. The blowtorch experiment shows that electrons can and do carry significant amounts of heat (or cold) because electric current involves a lot of electrons, perhaps Avogodro’s number of electrons, passing by each point in in the wire every minute.

Since electrons have temperature, and since transistors are hot when running, it is possible to surmise that the NPN transistor on this diagram will make those conduction electrons hot, and then those hot electrons will pass through the PNP transistor. This contributes to premature failure of PNP transistors in actual circuits. The specific mechanism of this PNP transistor failure will be a subject of subsequent reading in this space.

Maybe someday there will be a positronic conducting wire, that is a wire (possibly made of antimatter) that will have positrons rather than electrons conducting electric current. This blowtorch experiment provides a method of searching for such a positronic conductor because the resulting temperature would become skewed in the opposite direction.

It is more likely that a positronic conductor would be made of plasma rather than existing as a room temperature solid. Although a room-temperature conductor of positrons hasn't been found as of yet, we should not assume that there isn’t or can’t be a positronic conductor, although such an item seems to be unlikely based on experience.

As an aside, positive conducting P type semiconductors use "positively charged hole" conduction which implies that electrons are actually traveling in the opposite direction of the hole current . It is unlikely that hole conduction would show a positronic temperature profile during the blowtorch experiment. Holes don't have any specific heat. 

Be sure to allow the wire to cool off between experiments. Or, put ice in the middle of the wire and observe drift electron cooling effects as electrons become cold by passing through the cold section of the bare wire.

My Compact Disk Stereo

There is a joke about a car that wouldn't start, and four men were in the car.  The car would not start. Each one had a different idea regarding the way to get the car started and going; The car contained a musician, a lawyer, a manager, and a software engineer.  At the end, the software engineer says that everyone should get out of the car and then climb back in again. 

The stereo in the joke below is newer than the Do It Yourself Kit , though the newer stereo is connected to those same old (awesome) huge speakers that came with the old stereo.  History lesson: Old fashioned CD's from the previous century are now called "AnalogCD" even though they are digitized. AnalogCD. Make a note of it. 

My compact disk stereo was designed by a musician, a manager, a lawyer, and a software engineer.  It will play old CD 's from the previous century for the musician, or newer empee three disks for the manager.  If the stereo plays music from an MP3 it works well but then after that it won't like to play any AnalogCD for some reason having to do with the lawyer and the software engineer.  At the end, the software engineer says that everyone should turn off the stereo and then turn it back on again. This solves the problem immediately and then the stereo then will play any AnalogCD.

Turn the stereo off, then turn it back on again. Problem solved. Baaad designs.  

Low Price Sausage

Cat food from California tastes better than sausage from Alabama.  Those are the results of a science experiment.  The low bid sausage has a smooth casing before, and also after cooking.  Then after cooking it sweats a little, perhaps from having "extra protein" added.  The family domestic cat was offended by the smell so she colluded with smart-aleck daughter to fry up some "Fr-----s" cat food after forming it into the shape of sausages.

The fried cat food had a rough appearance and a pleasing flavor.  It was actually good to eat. 

The low-price, smooth skinned sausage was unpalatable.  A dog wouldn't eat it.  A cat wouldn't eat it.  But it was cheap to buy at the store so there was a lot of it.  After walkies around the block, sumdangdik returned home to realize that the house had retained the odor from the "cat food factory" that is now producing "people food".  Yikes, the smell lasted for days and wouldn't go away. That odor from the low price sausage may have been a reason why the children decided to become vegetarians.

Low Bid Sausage

While traveling to various factory sites where sumdangdik is often called to be consulting with or training the customers, there is ample opportunity to visit various restaurants that vary from region to region. This usually works out quite well unless he is visiting Alabama. Folks in Alabama eat food that would be considered unacceptable in other states, and they actually tell sumdangdik where not-to-eat. Although the local folks enjoy eating soul food, it often gives a visitor a case of indigestion. Even at a mainstream place like Waffle House, if the server asks if you want something (like "extra protein") that you never heard of before it is best to say no. At the bar and grill it is better to avoid anything fried and simply have soup and sandwich.

Then it's off to work for sumdangdik. He works in a factory in an industrial park which smells bad. Folks who drive by say, "Here comes the smell place" and roll up the car windows.  One day the Norfolk & Southern train folks decided to stop for an hour nearby, which was blocking traffic on some local roads.  They thought it would be a good place for a layover until they got a few whiffs of the local aroma, mostly consisting of rotten meat piled up at a cat food factory.  Apparently the meat will sit out in the sun for two or three days and then the factory will can it as cat food. Poor cats.

Even the cat food in Alabama is worse than cat food elsewhere. When the Norfolk & Southern train folks found out that the air smells that bad every day, they decided to park their trains elsewhere. Local roads are rarely blocked by stopped trains anymore. Tourists stay away. There is a big American flag on a pole in the yard at the factory, and people will look out the window at the flag to see which way the wind is blowing before going outside. If the wind is blowing from the direction of the cat food factory then the people stay inside a building and go hungry.

Eventually the work is finished for the day and sumdangdik retires to a local motel after a simple dinner of soup and sandwich. The next morning he goes to a well-known restaurant chain "D----'s" and orders the large breakfast of bacon, eggs, and sausage, because he is still hungry from the day before. When the breakfast arrives he notices that the breakfast sausage smells like the cat food factory odor. There had been a rumor that the cat food factory was making "people food" as well. It seems that the "people food" is breakfast sausage made from meat that has been rotting in the sun for two or three days. Some bean counter at the well-known restaurant had apparently bought a bunch of this sausage because it was cheap, hence it came from the lowest bidder. Sumdangdik can still catch a whiff of the cat food factory when he is visiting the well-known restaurant during breakfast hours. If he says to you, "Don't eat the sausage" that means don't even cut it open otherwise you will be able to smell the cat food factory for yourself.

Some products shouldn't be purchased on the basis of having the cheapest price.  Don't buy or eat the low bid sausage.

ALMOST LEFTOVERS

Recently sumdangdik was reviewing the canned goods in his pantry. Some of those canned goods had an "eat by date" of two thousand eight. Since this is the year two thousand eleven, sumdangdik decided to throw out those canned goods. Even so, how could two years have gone past already? Sumdangdik eats everything in the cupboard and cabinet. How could there be any leftovers? Because two years went by like nothing. These discarded canned goods are the proof. One such can had an "eat by date" of two thousand seven. That could be four or five years ago depending on how you count years.

Instant soup is freeze dried and therefore likely to be edible. Even though the "eat by date" was two thousand seven. Chicken soup cures what ails ya. Sumdangdik cooked up some instant soup from two thousand seven ( 2007) . He added some crushed tortilla chips, some shredded swiss cheese and then the mixture was microwaved for another thirty seconds.
Recipe For Instant Chicken soup for the new year:
    One instant chicken soup-in-a-cup
    One half liter of distilled water
    One handful crushed tortilla chips
    Half a slice of swiss cheese, torn up into little bites, (Eat the other half while you
    are waiting for the microwave oven to cook your delicious soup).