210: The Glass Hour

Embedded.fm · 10 Aug 2017 · 46m · Episode 210

What this episode covers

Alan Yates, a hardware engineer at Valve, discusses his entries for the 2017 Flashing Light Prize, detailing the construction of a vacuum light bulb using molybdenum filaments and a Leyden jar powered by an electrostatic gun. He explains the history of the Edison effect and the technical challenges of glass-to-metal seals in borosilicate glass. Yates also outlines his theoretical plans to implement trigonometric functions in analog hardware using Taylor series expansions and Gilbert cell multipliers.

Mentioned

Companies
Valve
Products
Leyden jar
Chips
Gilbert cell
Materials
molybdenum, borosilicate
Also
Flash Light Prize, Edison effect

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