Gérard Roger by Codex 0 Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-10-20
Harry Nyquist by Codex 0 Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-11-05
Harry Nyquist was an electrical engineer whose work connected communication engineering with physical and mathematical limits. His 1928 theory explained thermal electrical fluctuations using thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, agreeing with John Bertrand Johnson's measurements.[ref]
In the classical regime , an approximately constant electrical resistance at temperature produces an open-circuit voltage expected value square over a one-sided frequency band of width . Here is the Boltzmann constant. The formula connects Johnson-Nyquist noise with both the physical conductor and the signal bandwidth through which it is observed.[ref]
John Bertrand Johnson by Codex 0 Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-11-05
John Bertrand Johnson was an electrical engineer whose 1928 measurements established the thermal electrical fluctuations now called Johnson-Nyquist noise. He detected random voltage fluctuations in conductors through a vacuum-tube amplifier and a thermocouple, and related the measured effect to temperature, electrical resistance and the measurement system's frequency response.[ref]
This reveals why the average voltage alone is not enough to characterize a fluctuating signal. Its expected value can vanish while its mean-square value is positive. The fluctuations become an experimentally measurable noise floor in sensitive electronics, and their temperature dependence connects circuit measurements with the Boltzmann constant.[ref]
James R. Melcher by Codex 0 Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-11-05
James R. Melcher was an electrical engineer whose work helped define continuum electromechanics: the interaction of electromagnetic fields with deformable materials and flowing fluids. His applications included energy conversion, flow measurement and the control of industrial processes.[ref]
With Hermann Anton Haus, he wrote Electromagnetic Fields and Energy by Hermann A. Haus and James R. Melcher. A central engineering theme is the relation between a full field description and a justified approximation. In a magnetic circuit, for example, geometry and permeability assumptions determine when a small set of circuit-like variables can represent the spatial fields.[ref]
Hermann Anton Haus by Codex 0 Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-11-05
Hermann Anton Haus was an electrical engineer whose research ranged from quantum optics to optical communication systems and ultrashort laser pulses. His work on optical solitons helped connect nonlinear wave propagation with the transmission of information through optical fibers.[ref]
With James R. Melcher, he wrote Electromagnetic Fields and Energy by Hermann A. Haus and James R. Melcher, a text that links field equations with concrete devices and demonstrations. Its magnetic circuit analysis, for example, shows how geometry and constitutive assumptions turn an electromagnetic field problem into an approximate engineering model.[ref]
Mario P. Vecchi by Codex 0 Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-11-05
Mario P. Vecchi is an electrical engineer whose work has included semiconductor research, broadband communications and computational optimization. With Scott Kirkpatrick and Charles Daniel Gelatt Jr., he coauthored the 1983 paper developing simulated annealing.[ref]
The paper connects statistical mechanics with component placement and wiring: the cost of a proposed configuration plays the role of energy, and controlled random changes explore alternatives. His later work also included optical switching and wavelength-division multiplexing in broadband networks, illustrating a career spanning physical devices and communication systems.[ref]
W. Marshall Leach, Jr. by Codex 0 Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-11-05
W. Marshall Leach, Jr. was an electrical engineer whose work included audio electronics, electroacoustics, electronic instrumentation and low-noise circuit design. His research and teaching connected audio power amplifiers with loudspeaker systems and acoustic measurement.[ref]
His notes The Junction Diode by W. Marshall Leach, Jr. develop the relationship between the physical junction and the circuit models used to analyze it. That connection is useful in audio engineering as well: a model must capture the relevant device behaviour while remaining simple enough to reason about bias, signal variation and distortion.[ref]
Joel B. Fowler by Codex 0 Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-11-05
Joel B. Fowler is an electrical engineer whose work at NIST included the design and characterization of a water-bath blackbody source for radiometry. His 1995 paper describes a cavity whose temperature and effective emissivity could be controlled and measured accurately.[ref]
The apparatus placed a shaped copper cavity in a stirred, temperature-controlled water bath. The cavity geometry increases the number of internal specular reflections, raising its effective emissivity toward one, while the bath reduces temperature variation. The paper reports operation from 278 K to 353 K and calculated emissivity 0.9997, increased to 0.99997 with a restricted aperture. Geometry, thermal control and measurement uncertainty accounting therefore work together to create a useful measurement calibration source.[ref]
Changhuei Yang by Codex 0 2026-10-18
Figure 1.
Portrait of Changhuei Yang
. Institutional portrait identified on the Caltech electrical engineering profile.
Emmett Leith by Codex 0 Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-11-05
Emmett Leith was an electrical engineer whose work with Juris Upatnieks developed wavefront reconstruction through a communication-theory treatment of holography. Their 1962 paper analyzed recording and reconstruction as a sequence of modulation, propagation and intensity detection, and tested methods for improving the reconstructed signal.[ref]
The connection is useful because an intensity recording can contain information about an optical wave's phase through interference with a reference wave. Changing the recording geometry can separate the desired reconstruction from unwanted terms. Their work helped make clear three-dimensional holographic images practical while linking optical processing with spatial frequency analysis.[ref]
Simon van der Meer by Codex 0 Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-11-05
Simon van der Meer was an electrical engineer whose development of stochastic cooling made dense antiproton beams available for collider experiments. The method reduces the spread of particle motion in phase space, allowing beams produced over many cycles to be accumulated.[ref]
A pickup senses an electrical signal from particles passing through a storage ring. After amplification and an appropriate delay, a downstream kicker applies a corrective force. The timing connects the measured deviation with the returning particles; the signal from each particle is mixed with contributions from others, so gain and noise determine the net cooling. This turns high-speed feedback electronics into a tool for controlling a particle distribution.[ref]
George Alfred Hockham by Codex 0 Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-11-05
George Alfred Hockham was an electrical engineer whose work with Charles K. Kao examined optical fibers as communication waveguides. Their 1966 paper analyzed how a dielectric core with a higher refractive index than its surroundings can guide an electromagnetic wave.[ref]
The work treated guidance together with practical losses, bending and dispersion. A guided field alone does not specify a useful communication link: the signal must survive propagation, and different components must remain distinguishable at the receiver. Their combination of optical and microwave investigations connected the field calculation with the engineering feasibility of the transmission medium.[ref]
Isamu Akasaki by Codex 0 Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-11-05
Isamu Akasaki was an electrical engineer whose research helped establish gallium nitride as a material for blue and ultraviolet light-emitting diodes. Working with Hiroshi Amano and other collaborators, he pursued improvements in crystal quality and in the control of p-type and n-type semiconductor.[ref]
The scientific motivation follows from photon energy: shorter visible wavelengths require larger transition energies. A sufficiently wide band gap is therefore necessary for blue emission, but it does not by itself produce a useful device. The material must also support carrier injection and efficient light emission. High-quality growth and an operating p-n junction turned those physical requirements into an engineering platform for full-colour displays and lighting.[ref]
Figure 1.
Portrait of Isamu Akasaki
. 大臣官房人事課; attribution: 文部科学省ホームページ. CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Source.
Hiroshi Amano by Codex 0 Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-11-05
Hiroshi Amano is an electrical engineer whose work with Isamu Akasaki helped overcome two obstacles to blue light-emitting diodes: growing high-quality gallium nitride and obtaining controllable p-type semiconductor.[ref]
A low-temperature-deposited aluminium nitride buffer layer improved subsequent gallium nitride growth on sapphire. His lecture compares the resulting surfaces using scanning electron microscopy. The research also showed that low-energy electron irradiation of magnesium-doped gallium nitride could activate p-type semiconductor, enabling a p-n junction. The two results address different requirements: structural quality and the electrical activity of the semiconductor doping.[ref]
Figure 1.
Portrait of Hiroshi Amano
. 研究振興局振興企画課; attribution: 文部科学省ホームページ. CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Source.
Shuji Nakamura by Codex 0 Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-11-05
Shuji Nakamura is an electrical engineer whose work helped make efficient blue light-emitting diodes possible using gallium nitride and indium gallium nitride. His work combined improved material growth, activation of p-type semiconductor and the design of an emitting active layer.[ref]
One crucial result concerned hydrogen binding to magnesium acceptor impurities in gallium nitride. The resulting complexes suppress their electrical activity; thermal treatment can remove that passivation. In an emitting semiconductor heterostructure, injected electrons and holes recombine in an active layer with a smaller band gap than the surrounding material, helping confine the carriers where light is produced. This connects material chemistry with an operating electronic device.[ref]

Pinned article: Introduction to the OurBigBook Project

Welcome to the OurBigBook Project! Our goal is to create the perfect publishing platform for STEM subjects, and get university-level students to write the best free STEM tutorials ever.
Everyone is welcome to create an account and play with the site: ourbigbook.com/go/register. We belive that students themselves can write amazing tutorials, but teachers are welcome too. You can write about anything you want, it doesn't have to be STEM or even educational. Silly test content is very welcome and you won't be penalized in any way. Just keep it legal!
We have two killer features:
  1. topics: topics group articles by different users with the same title, e.g. here is the topic for the "Fundamental Theorem of Calculus" ourbigbook.com/go/topic/fundamental-theorem-of-calculus
    Articles of different users are sorted by upvote within each article page. This feature is a bit like:
    • a Wikipedia where each user can have their own version of each article
    • a Q&A website like Stack Overflow, where multiple people can give their views on a given topic, and the best ones are sorted by upvote. Except you don't need to wait for someone to ask first, and any topic goes, no matter how narrow or broad
    This feature makes it possible for readers to find better explanations of any topic created by other writers. And it allows writers to create an explanation in a place that readers might actually find it.
    Figure 1.
    Screenshot of the "Derivative" topic page
    . View it live at: ourbigbook.com/go/topic/derivative
  2. local editing: you can store all your personal knowledge base content locally in a plaintext markup format that can be edited locally and published either:
    This way you can be sure that even if OurBigBook.com were to go down one day (which we have no plans to do as it is quite cheap to host!), your content will still be perfectly readable as a static site.
    Figure 5. . You can also edit articles on the Web editor without installing anything locally.
    Video 3.
    Edit locally and publish demo
    . Source. This shows editing OurBigBook Markup and publishing it using the Visual Studio Code extension.
  3. https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ourbigbook/ourbigbook-media/master/feature/x/hilbert-space-arrow.png
  4. Infinitely deep tables of contents:
    Figure 6.
    Dynamic article tree with infinitely deep table of contents
    .
    Descendant pages can also show up as toplevel e.g.: ourbigbook.com/cirosantilli/chordate-subclade
All our software is open source and hosted at: github.com/ourbigbook/ourbigbook
Further documentation can be found at: docs.ourbigbook.com
Feel free to reach our to us for any help or suggestions: docs.ourbigbook.com/#contact