Transistors are basically magic, when you get down to the chemistry of them. But when you get up the “current here means current out there” part it becomes understandable again. Then you get to logic gates, and maybe up to basic addition and other operations. And all understanding disappears when you get to programmable circuits which run on pure magic once again.
I was a signal integrity engineer so emag theory was my job for a while.
Honestly, magic is quite right. At the base level, how these fields are created and how electrons moving around results in these rules is just the magic of how our universe works.
You can discover the rules to live by, but why it works that way gets smaller and smaller until it’s magic.
Yeah sure but then if you dig down into the standard model of particle physics and quantum field theory to get the REAL answers, you learn that this phone I’m trying not to drop on my face is just a bunch of energy field waves kind of intersecting and coupling in just the right way and… shit nevermind. It’s magic all the way down.
If you don’t think “it’s magic” after emag theory… At a certain point the math does start to read like spell craft.
“Yes, yes, but what ratio of turns do we need in the transformer?”
Transistors are basically magic, when you get down to the chemistry of them. But when you get up the “current here means current out there” part it becomes understandable again. Then you get to logic gates, and maybe up to basic addition and other operations. And all understanding disappears when you get to programmable circuits which run on pure magic once again.
And if you put the 200 layers of abstractions, indirections and quirks on top the transistors, it’s magic again.
I was a signal integrity engineer so emag theory was my job for a while.
Honestly, magic is quite right. At the base level, how these fields are created and how electrons moving around results in these rules is just the magic of how our universe works.
You can discover the rules to live by, but why it works that way gets smaller and smaller until it’s magic.
Yeah sure but then if you dig down into the standard model of particle physics and quantum field theory to get the REAL answers, you learn that this phone I’m trying not to drop on my face is just a bunch of energy field waves kind of intersecting and coupling in just the right way and… shit nevermind. It’s magic all the way down.
To a certain extent, it actually is magic. We still don’t fully understand the “why” of magnetism, just the “how”