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Subtle is the Lord by Abraham Pais (1982) page 85:so it is quite cool to see that organic chemistry is one of the things that pushed atomic theory forward. Because when you start to observe that isomers has different characteristics, despite identical proportions of atoms, this is really hard to explain without talking about the relative positions of the atoms within molecules!
However, it became increasingly difficult in chemical circles to deny the reality of molecules after 1874, the year in which Jacobus Henricus van't Hoff and Joseph Achille Le Bel independently explained the isomerism of certain organic substances in terms of stereochemical properties of carbon compounds.
Small microscopic visible particles move randomly around in water.
If water were continuous, this shouldn't happen. Therefore this serves as one important evidence of atomic theory.
The amount it moves also quantitatively matches with the expected properties of water and the floating particles, was was settled in 1905 by Einstein at: investigations on the theory of the Brownian movement by Einstein (1905).
This suggestion that Brownian motion comes from the movement of atoms had been made much before Einstein however, and passed tortuous discussions. Subtle is the Lord by Abraham Pais (1982) page 93 explains it well. There had already been infinite discussion on possible causes of those movements besides atomic theory, and many ideas were rejected as incompatible with observations:The first suggestions of atomic theory were from the 1860s.
Further investigations eliminated such causes as temperature gradients, mechanical disturbances, capillary actions, irradiation of the liquid (as long as the resulting temperature increase can be neglected), and the presence of convection currents within the liquid.
Tiny uniform plastic beads called "microbeads" are the preferred 2019 modern method of doing this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbead
Original well known observation in 1827 by Brown, with further experiments and interpretation in 1908 by Jean Baptiste Perrin. Possible precursor observation in 1785 by Jan Ingenhousz, not sure why he wasn't credited better.
Observing Brownian motion of micro beads by Forrest Charnock (2016)
Source. This notation is designed to be relatively easy to write. This is achieved by not drawing ultra complex ASCII art boxes of every component. It would be slightly more readable if we did that, but prioritizing the writer here.
Two wires are only joined if but the following are:
+ is given. E.g. the following two wires are not joined: |
--|--
| |
--+--
|Simple symmetric components:
-,+and|: wireAC: AC source. Parameters:e.g.:If only one side is given, the other is assumed to be at a groundAC_1Hz_2VG.C: capacitorG: ground. Often used together withDC, e.g.:means applying a voltage of 10 V across a 10 Ohm resistor, which would lead to a current of 1 ADC_10---R_10---GL: inductorMICROPHONE. As a multi-letter symmetric component, you can connect the two wires anywhere, e.g.or:---MICROPHONE---| MICROPHONE |SPEAKERR: resistorSQUID: SQUID deviceX: Josephson junction
Asymmetric components have multiple letters indicating different ports. The capital letter indicates the device, and lower case letters the ports. The wires then go into the ports:
D: diodeSample usage in a circuit:a: anode (where electrons can come in from)c: cathode
Can also be used vertically like aany other circuit:--aDc--We can also change the port order, the device is still the same due to capital| a D c |D:--cDa-- | Dac-- | Dca-- | --caDDCDC source. Ports:E.g. a 10 V source with a 10 Ohm resistor would be:p: positiven: negative
If only one side is given, the other is assumed to be at a the ground+---pDC_10_n---+ | | +----R_10------+G. We can also omitpandmin that case and assume thatpis the one used, e.g. the above would be equivalent to:If the voltage is not given, it is assumed to be a variable voltage power supply.DC_10---R_10---GLED: same as diodeI: electric current source. Ports:P: potentiometer source. Ports:1: one of the sides2: the middle3: the other side
T: transistor. The ports aresgTd:Sample usage in a circuit:s: sourceg: gated: gate
All the following are also equivalent:---+ | --sgTd--| g --sTd-- | --Tsgd-- |- ports can also be separated by double underscores from the component names to increase readability. Single underscores can also be used to increase readability of longer multi-word component names e.g.:which is the same as:
RPI_PICO_W__1gp0__3gnd | | R_2k | | | +-aLEDc-+represents a circuit linking port 1 of a Raspberry Pi Pico W, which is GPIO pin 0, through a resistor and an LED, back to pin 3 of the board, which is ground.RPI_PICO_W 1gp0 3gnd | | R_2k | | | +-aLEDc-+
Numbers characterizing components are put just next to each component with an underscore. When there is only one parameter, standard units are assumed, e.g.:means:Micro is denoted as
+-----+
| |
C_1p R_2k
| |
+-----+u.Technique to solve partial differential equations
Naturally leads to the Fourier series, see: solving partial differential equations with the Fourier series, and to other analogous expansions:
One notable application is the solution of the Schrödinger equation via the time-independent Schrödinger equation.
Unfortunately, physicists and mathematicians keep using Greek letters in their formulas, so we just have to learn them.
A helpful way to remember is to learn a bit of their history/pronunciation: Section "Historical correspondence between Latin and Greek".
To learn the greek letters if you have a base latin alphabet, you must learn the sound of each letter, and which Latin letters they correspond to.
Symbols that look like Greek letters but are not Greek letters:
Is Ciro Santilli crazy (he is, but for this point specifically), or do many/most Greek letters represent the mouth position used in the pronunciation of the letter?
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!
Intro to OurBigBook
. Source. We have two killer features:
- 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-calculusArticles 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/derivativeVideo 2. OurBigBook Web topics demo. Source. - 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.
- to OurBigBook.com to get awesome multi-user features like topics and likes
- as HTML files to a static website, which you can host yourself for free on many external providers like GitHub Pages, and remain in full control
Figure 2. You can publish local OurBigBook lightweight markup files to either OurBigBook.com or as a static website.
Figure 3. Visual Studio Code extension installation.
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. 
- Infinitely deep tables of contents:
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