HECO Meter

I thought it would be ridiculous if I dressed up in my MARPAT uniform for this picture, so I did.

Also, new episode of 24 tonight. WHAT'S JACK GOING TO DO?

Electromagnetic Fields

Electromagnetic fields are everywhere, because, as we learned in physics, an electrical currents create electromagnetic fields. Hans Christian Oersted found this out on accident when he had a wire with current flowing through it and a table full of compasses, so I thought it would be a great idea to go around the house this weekend with a compass to observe for myself the effects of electromagnetic fields. It was cool (For real!). My compass reacted according to the strength of the electromagnetic field generated by whatever device around the house I tested because the compass is simply a magnet that points to a magnetic south pole. I tested my compass with a cell phone, a clock radio, and a 500W computer power supply unit. The compass seemed to react most to the cell phone at its base, which is where I suspect the antenna is located, and second most to the clock radio. Yay for physics observations in everyday life!

EDIT (3/11/09): Video is up now.



EDIT (3/10/09): I have to make a correction to the concept explained in this post. Upon closer examination, I noticed that my phone caused movement of the magnetic needle of the compass even while it was turned off, so the electromagnetic field could not have been the main factor for the needle's deflection. Whoops =(. Through further research, I found that it was probably the magnet in my phones speaker that caused the deflection. This is supported by the fact that the strength of the attraction/repulsion is stronger as the needle gets closer to the speaker area on my phone. Furthermore, the clock radio also has a speaker. Magnets are a component of a speaker. From my video, I can conclude that the south pole of my phone's speaker magnet faces in the same direction as the face of my phone, and north pole of the speaker magnet faces the same direction as the back of my phone.

Oops..

Last night I was a bit careless and I accidentally bumped a small exposed power connector while using the computer. Usually, that cord would be connected to a fan attached to the side of my case, which resists the current flowing through it, but I had removed my side panel because I needed to swap some parts out of my computer. I get pretty lazy sometimes, and after I swapped the parts out, I didn’t bother replacing the side panel and hooking the fan back up. That was a huge mistake. When I let the exposed power connector touch the conductive metal of my computer’s case, I short circuited my computer because there was little resistance (compared to the resistance of the fan) through the case. Luckily, due to the short circuit protection built into the power supply, I was able to get my PC (no components seemed to have been damaged) running again within moments. Hooray for safety features!