The search for alternative sources of electricity has become widespread in recent decades. The threat of depletion of fossil energy resources has stimulated research on the use of renewable resources: energy from air, water, and geothermal heat.

The army of inventors joined the scientists working in the field of alternative energy, and today they “flooded” the information space with projects for obtaining “free” energy. One of the most popular areas of their development is the use of atmospheric electricity. Observing the violence of the elements during thunderstorms, there is a great temptation to tame the electric forces of the Earth, to use them for the benefit of man. Let's try to assess how realistic it is to get close to these forces and use them in practice. To begin with, we will answer the question of whether the Earth's electricity reserves are really large? ...

In all radio and electronic devices, except transistors and microcircuits, capacitors are used. In some circuits there are more of them, in others less, but there are practically no electronic circuits without capacitors.

In this case, capacitors can perform a variety of tasks in devices. First of all, these are containers in the filters of rectifiers and stabilizers. With the help of capacitors, a signal is transmitted between the amplifier stages, low and high frequency filters are built, time intervals in the time delays are set, and the oscillation frequency in various generators is selected.

Capacitors derive their pedigree from the Leyden jar, which in the middle of the 18th century was used in their experiments by the Dutch scientist Peter van Mushenbruck. He lived in the city of Leiden, so it is easy to guess why this bank was called. Actually, it was an ordinary glass jar ...

The life of a modern person, especially a city dweller, is inconceivable without electric energy. It is necessary to temporarily stop the supply of electricity, and the supply of gas, water to the apartments stops, the heating does not work. In the dark, cold and without water, a modern resident becomes completely helpless.

Electric energy consumption is constantly growing, and its production is increasing. The consequence is a large load on the environment, its environmental pollution. Therefore, the rational consumption of electric energy is the most important technical and organizational task.

Electricity is the most perishable product in the world - if it is not consumed by loads, then after a moment many tons of coal, fuel oil, thousands of cubic meters of gas will disappear without a trace and useless. The coordination of the amount of generated and consumed energy is solved in several ways ...

Hard disk drives are so familiar elements of computers that when bundling a new system unit, difficulties arise only with the choice of the manufacturer. The capacity of modern hard drives exceeds all conceivable needs for storing programs and data and allows you to create a reserve "for growth". Forecasts about their imminent “death” and replacement with SSDs have remained forecasts for many years.

The design of hard drives was implemented in the 50s and basically has not changed until today. The first disk was released in 1956 and its contemporaries were radio tubes, phonograph records and punch cards for data input. Transistors existed only in the form of laboratory samples; microchips, especially microprocessors, had not even dreamed of.Since that time, magnetic tape drives, noisy perforators, floppy disks have gone into oblivion.

Maybe many people noticed that in winter, at temperatures below minus 10, thawed patches appear on bright asphalt, and the water sparkles in the sun. So the temperature of the surface of the road or sidewalk does not match the temperature of the air?

A bit of physics: the solar radiation spectrum covers the range from the ultraviolet region to infrared, thermal radiation. In fact, this spectrum is much wider, but our atmosphere and the magnetic “screen” of the Earth regularly protect the planet and its inhabitants from the fierce flow of energy from the Sun.

And now we will return to the phenomenon at the beginning of the article, we will figure out what practical application it can find. All the heat that we receive from the Sun is transmitted by radiation, i.e. radiation. Each object (surface) perceives this radiation in a different way. Light materials and objects absorb heat rays weakly ...

Fundamental science in recent years has rarely spoiled engineers with discoveries suitable for industrial implementation. But the last two decades have become a pleasant exception. Two Nobel Prizes and a third discovery, not yet appreciated by the Nobel Committee, created prospects for engineers and technologists to work for many decades. And they are all associated with one element - carbon.

Why are these discoveries so important and what new can such a familiar chemical element give us? Everything that we know about carbon makes it the most interesting and important element of the periodic table. To begin with, life itself arose on a carbon basis. The ability of carbon atoms to combine into complex structures has allowed nature to create protein organisms and breathe the mind into humans. All organic chemistry with its abundance of new, artificial materials ...

Where to get energy? It is no secret that sooner or later people will run out of oil, gas, coal, and even uranium, which are still left on the planet. A reasonable question arises: "What to do next?" Where to get energy? " After all, our whole life is based on the use of energy. It turns out that after the hydrocarbon reserves run out, the existence of civilization will end too?

There is an exit! These are the so-called alternative energy sources. By the way, many of them are used, and successfully, already at present. The energy of wind, tides, the sun and geothermal sources ─ is successfully used and converted by people into electricity. But these are “official alternative sources”. Currently, there are hundreds of theories and developments on the creation and use of unusual alternative energy sources. The alternative energy sources described in this article are ...

It is necessary to warn right away: there is no mistake in the title, there will be no story about cosmic energy consonant with the name. We leave it to esotericists and science fiction writers. And we will talk about the usual phenomenon with which we coexist alongside throughout life.

How many people know due to what processes the juices in trees rise to a considerable height? For sequoia, it is more than 100 meters. This transportation of juices to the photosynthesis zone occurs due to the work of the physical effect - osmosis. It consists in a simple phenomenon: in two solutions of different concentrations, placed in a vessel with a semipermeable (permeable only for solvent molecules) membrane, a level difference appears after some time.

And now from wildlife we ​​will return to technology.If sea and fresh water are placed in a vessel with a septum, then due to different concentrations of dissolved salts, osmotic pressure appears and the sea water level rises ...