Faster-than-light by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
One argument of why, is that if you could travel faster than light, then you could send a message to a point in Spacetime that is spacelike-separated from the present. But then since the target is spacelike separated, there exists a inertial frame of reference in which that event happens before the present, which would be hard to make sense of.
Even worse, it would be possible to travel back in time:
Cavity magnetron by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
Apparently, DC current comes in, and microwaves come out.
TODO: sample power efficiently of this conversion and output spectrum of this conversion on some cheap device we can buy today.
Video 1.
Magnetron, How does it work? by Lesics (2020)
Source.
Video 2.
Device that Won WW2 by Curious Droid
. Source.
Polarization of light by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
This section discusses the pre-photon understanding of the polarization of light. For the photon one see: photon polarization.
People were a bit confused when experiments started to show that light might be polarized. How could a wave that propages through a 3D homgenous material like luminiferous aether have polarization?? Light would presumably be understood to be analogous to a sound wave in 3D medium, which cannot have polarization. This was before Maxwell's equations, in the early 19th century, so there was no way to know.
Finance is a cancer of society. But I have to admit it, it's kind of cool.
Video 1.
Lasers Transmit Market Data and Trade Execution by Anova Technologies (2014)
Source. Their system is insane. It compensates in real time for wind movements of towers. They also have advanced building tracking for things that might cover line of sight.
Visible spectrum by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
420 to 680 nm for sure, but larger ranges are observable in laboratory conditions.
A critical system refers to a system that is essential for the functioning of a larger framework or operation, where failure or malfunction could result in significant consequences, such as safety hazards, financial loss, or disruption of services. Critical systems are commonly found in various domains, including: 1. **Safety-Critical Systems**: These are systems where a failure could lead directly to loss of life, significant property damage, or environmental harm.
Phenomena that produces photons in pairs as it passes through a certain type of crystal.
You can then detect one of the photons, and when you do you know that the other one is there as well and ready to be used. two photon interference experiment comes to mind, which is the basis of photonic quantum computer, where you need two photons to be produced at the exact same time to produce quantum entanglement.
Video 1.
One Photon In, TWO Photons Out by JQInews (2010)
Source.
Mentions that this phenomena is useful to determine the efficiency of a single photon detector, as you have the second photon of the pair as a control.
Also briefly describes how the input energy and momentum must balance out the output energy and momentum of the two photons coming out (determined by the output frequency and angle).
Shows the crystal close up of the crystal branded "Cleveland Crystals Inc.". Mentions that only one in a billion photon gets scattered.
Then shows their actual optical table setup, with two tunnels of adjustable angle to get photons with different properties.
Video 2.
How do you produce a single photon? by Physics World (2015)
Source.
Very short whiteboard video by Peter Mosley from the University of Bath, but it's worth it for newbs. Basically describes spontaneous parametric down-conversion.
One interesting thing he mentions is that you could get single photons by making your sunglasses thicker and thicker to reduce how many photons pass, but one big downside problem is that then you don't know when the photon is going to come through, that becomes essentially random, and then you can't use this technique if you need two photons at the same time, which is often the case, see also: two photon interference experiment.
Here is a vendor showcasing their device. They claim in that video that a single photon is produced and detected:
Carl Zeiss AG by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
Video 1.
Carl Zeiss, Explained by Asianometry (2021)
Source.
Video 2.
How Carl Zeiss Crafts Optics for a $150 Million EUV Machine
. Source. Difficulty: light at those frequencies get absorbed by lenses. So you have to use mirrors instead.
Carl Zeiss SMT by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
Subsidiary of Carl Zeiss AG and also part owned by ASML, sole optics vendor of ASML as of 2020.
Morgan Ward refers to multiple subjects, so the context in which you encountered the term would determine its specific meaning. 1. **Morgan Ward as a Name**: It could refer to a person, such as an individual with that name who might be known in various professional fields like art, academia, or business. 2. **Morgan Ward in Geographic Context**: It might also refer to an area or district named Morgan Ward, which could be a division in a city, town, or municipality.

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 2.
    You can publish local OurBigBook lightweight markup files to either https://OurBigBook.com or as a static website
    .
    Figure 3.
    Visual Studio Code extension installation
    .
    Figure 4.
    Visual Studio Code extension tree navigation
    .
    Figure 5.
    Web editor
    . 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.
    Video 4.
    OurBigBook Visual Studio Code extension editing and navigation demo
    . Source.
  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