Monthly Archives: June 2013

Voyager 1 and Gliese 445

Posted on 30-June-2013 by mathscinotes

Introduction I was reading an article about the Voyager 1 space craft nearing the edge of interstellar space. This article was so interesting that I ended up reading a number of articles on the subject (one example) and they all … Continue reading →

Posted in Astronomy | 9 Comments

Aiming Torpedoes from a PT Boat

Posted on 24-June-2013 by mathscinotes

I read quite a bit of World War 1 (WW1) and World War 2 (WW2) naval history. Recently, I have tried to specialize my readings on torpedo launch platforms. One area where I have never seen much information is on how torpedoes were used from PT boats during WW2. I am particularly interested in how torpedoes were aimed and launched. While doing some history-related searches on Youtube, I discovered this video that does an excellent job of showing how torpedoes were launched from PT boats. Continue reading →

Posted in Ballistics, History of Science and Technology, Military History, Naval History | 25 Comments

Whale Math

Posted on 23-June-2013 by mathscinotes

Introduction A reader asked a question that I answered in a comment response, but others may be interested so I will include my response as a post. One of my most read blog posts is about the amount of vertical … Continue reading →

Posted in General Mathematics, General Science | 3 Comments

Balancing Leadership and Management

Posted on 23-June-2013 by mathscinotes

A major topic of discussion in management circles today is leadership. Many people struggle to draw a distinction between leadership and management. I heard another manager draw the following reasonable distinction between management and leadership. I am sure they go … Continue reading →

Posted in Management | 3 Comments

Power Supply Voltage Control Using Current DAC

Posted on 22-June-2013 by mathscinotes

Introduction In this post, I am analyzing the feedback circuit of power supply with an output voltage that is controlled using a current-output Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC). I analyzed a related situation (voltage DAC) in this earlier post. This exercise started … Continue reading →

Posted in Electronics | 1 Comment

Fireflies and Supernova

Posted on 10-June-2013 by mathscinotes

Introduction Scientists always face the problem of making their work accessible to the public. Accessibility is crucial to scientific research continuing to receive funding. Part of this accessibility is creating analogies that relate scientific data to aspects of everyday life. … Continue reading →

Posted in Astronomy, General Science | Comments Off on Fireflies and Supernova

Too Many Definitions of Candle

Posted on 9-June-2013 by mathscinotes

I have been doing some reading about photometry lately and I noticed that the unit of lighting called the candle has had quite a history. I used to work for a metrology company and I have always been interested in … Continue reading →

Posted in General Science, History of Science and Technology | 2 Comments

Atmospheric Filtering of Sunlight

Posted on 6-June-2013 by mathscinotes

Introduction Today, I was asked a question about the amount of visible optical power that actually reaches the Earth's surface. I also need to compute the illuminance of this optical power, which tells me how bright this light appears. The … Continue reading →

Posted in Astronomy, General Science | 1 Comment

A Tale of Modern Life

Posted on 1-June-2013 by mathscinotes

I have mentioned that I manage an engineering team that has multiple projects going on at any one time. I have a project going on in China at this moment that involves two engineers. One of the engineers told me … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal | Tagged | Comments Off on A Tale of Modern Life