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.Main implementations: the same as electronic switches: vacuum tubes in the past, and transistors in the second half of the 20th century.
They can only absorb electrons up to a certain point, but then the pushback becomes too strong, and current stops.
Therefore, they cannot conduct direct current long term.
For alternating current however, things are different, because in alternating current, electrons are just jiggling back and forward a little bit around a center point. So you can send alternating current power across a capacitor.
The key equation that relates Voltage to electric current in the capacitor is:So if a voltage Heavyside step function is applied what happens is:More realistically, one may consider the behavior or the series RC circuit to see what happens without infinities when a capacitor is involved as in the step response of the series RC circuit.
- the capacitor fills up instantly with an infinite current
- the current then stops instantly
Finding capacitance with an oscilloscope by Jacob Watts (2020)
Source. Good experiment.Ideally can be thought of as a one-way ticket gate that only lets electrons go in one direction with zero resistance! Real devices do have imperfections however, so there is some resistance.
First they were made out of vacuum tubes, but later semiconductor diodes were invented and became much more widespread.
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 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. - 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






