Engineerguy videos & audio

This series on Albert Michelson’s Harmonic Analyzer celebrates a nineteenth century mechanical computer that performed Fourier analysis by using gears, springs and levers to calculate with sines and cosines—an astonishing feat in an age before electronic computers. This video (the fourth of four) shows how to operate the machine. Check out the series companion book and learn how to get a free PDF of the entire book at http://www.engineerguy.com/fourier.

This series on Albert Michelson’s Harmonic Analyzer celebrates a nineteenth century mechanical computer that performed Fourier analysis by using gears, springs and levers to calculate with sines and cosines—an astonishing feat in an age before electronic computers. This bonus video shows the motion of every rocker arm -- that is, every sinusoid. The end of the video shows all the arms in motion together. Check out the series companion book and learn how to get a free PDF of the entire book at http://www.engineerguy.com/fourier.

This series on Albert Michelson’s Harmonic Analyzer celebrates a nineteenth century mechanical computer that performed Fourier analysis by using gears, springs and levers to calculate with sines and cosines—an astonishing feat in an age before electronic computers. This videos shows the machine rotating and rotating -- including a breathtaking spiral up the machine at the end of the video. Check out the series companion book and learn how to get a free PDF of the entire book at http://www.engineerguy.com/fourier.

his series on Albert Michelson’s Harmonic Analyzer celebrates a nineteenth century mechanical computer that performed Fourier analysis by using gears, springs and levers to calculate with sines and cosines—an astonishing feat in an age before electronic computers. This video is a page-by-page commentary to the series companion book. Learn how to get a free PDF of the entire book at http://www.engineerguy.com/fourier.

► Learn more at: http://www.engineerguy.com/fourier ► Buy the book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0983966176/ ► Buy the posters on Zazzle: http://www.zazzle.com/engineerguy ► Main videos in the series: (1/4) Introduction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAsM30MAHLg (2/4) Synthesis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KmVDxkia_w (4/4) Operation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfH-NbsmvD4 ► Bonus videos: Books and Posters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXgTwrblClQ Page-by-Page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMHw9GCAtE8 Spinning Machine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPQwKRt4Y2k Rocker Arms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mBuyixt22U This series on Albert Michelson’s Harmonic Analyzer celebrates a nineteenth century mechanical computer that performed Fourier analysis by using gears, springs and levers to calculate with sines and cosines—an astonishing feat in an age before electronic computers. This video (the third of four) shows how to use the machine to do Fourier analysis. Check out the series companion book and learn how to get a free PDF of the entire book at http://www.engineerguy.com/fourier.

This series on Albert Michelson’s Harmonic Analyzer celebrates a nineteenth century mechanical computer that performed Fourier analysis by using gears, springs and levers to calculate with sines and cosines—an astonishing feat in an age before electronic computers. This video (the second of four) shows how to use the machine to do Fourier synthesis. Check out the series companion book and learn how to get a free PDF of the entire book at http://www.engineerguy.com/fourier.

This introduction to the series Albert Michelson’s Harmonic Analyzer celebrates a nineteenth century mechanical computer that performed Fourier analysis by using gears, springs and levers to calculate with sines and cosines—an astonishing feat in an age before electronic computers. This video is the first of four -- plus several bonus videos. Check out the series companion book and learn how to get a free PDF of the entire book at http://www.engineerguy.com/fourier.

Bill takes apart a smartphone and explains how its accelerometer works. He also shares the essential idea underlying the MEMS production of these devices

Bill takes apart a digital camera and explains how its captures images using a CCD (charge coupled device). He also shares how a single CCD is used with a color filter array to create colored images. This video is based on a chapter from the EngineerGuy team's latest book Eight Amazing Engineering Stories (Learn more at http://www.engineerguy.com/elements)

Bill uses a laser pointer and a bucket of glycol to show how fiber optic cables works, and how engineers use them to transmit signals across the ocean.

Bill uses a pile of cell phones to illustrate the seven design criteria that shape a mobile device. He outlines the seven basic constrain

Bill tears down a hard drive to show how it stores data. He explains how smooth the disk surface must be for the device to work, and he outlines the mathematical technique used to increase data storage.

Bill tears down an LCD monitor to show how it works. He describes how liquid crystals are used, the structure of the glass panes, and the thin film transistor (TFTs) that allow for active matrix addressing.

Bill takes apart a smoke detector and shows how it uses a radioactive source to generate a tiny current which is disrupted when smoke flows through the sensor. He describes how a special transistor called a MOSFET can be used to detect the tiny current changes.

Bill takes apart an incandescent light bulb to how how the filament is made. He shows extreme close-ups of the filament, and he discusses the materials processing need to make the ductile tungsten

Bill reveals how "queueing theory" - developed by engineers to route phone calls - can be used to find the most efficient arrangement of cashiers and check out lines. He reports on the work of Agner Erlang, a Danish engineer who, at the opening of the 20th century, helped the Copenhagen Telephone Company provide the best level of service at the lowest price.

The amazing everyday wristwatch: We never think about it, but only because engineers have made it so reliable and durable that we don't need to. At its heart lies a tiny tuning fork made of the mineral quartz. In this video Bill takes apart a cheap watch and shows extreme close-ups of the actually tunings fork. He explains how the piezoelectric effect of quartz lies at the heart of the watch's operation.

Bill shows how a transistor works by examing a replica of the first one ever build: The Bardeen-Brattain point contact transistor.

Bill opens up a vintage "black box" from a Delta airlines jetliner. He describes how the box withstands high temperatures and crash velocities because it is made from Inconel: A superalloy steels that is used in furnaces and others extreme environments. The flight data recorder he shows is a Sundstrand FA-542 and was likely used on a DC-9 in the 1970s, although it could have been used as late as 1988 on a Boeing 727.

To engineer an object means to make choices. Bill illustrates how the choice of having a single heating element made an engineer find a creative way to pump water with no moving parts.

Bill uses slow motion video to show the ingenious engineering design of the apparently simple tab of a pop can. To create a tab with the least amount of material it changes from a 2nd to a 1st class lever while opening the can.

Early calculating devices and computers used mechanical digital to analogue converters. This video describes one based on an arrangement of metal bars called a "whiffletree" - also sometimes called a "whippletree." It shows, briefly, the whiffletree used in IBM's revolutionary selectric typewriter and then illustrates the principles of a whiffletree converter by showing the simplest one - one that encodes digital impulses into two bits of information. (This videos is an appendix to Bill Hammack's video about the operation of the Selectric Typewriter.)

Using slow motion video Bill Hammack, the engineer guy, shows how IBM's revolutionary "golf ball" typewriter works. He describes the marvelous completely mechanical digital-to-analogue converter that translates the discrete impulse of the keys to the rotation of the type element. (This is the typewriter featured on the television series Mad Men.)

In ths public radio piece Bill reveals the mysteries of the Ice Hotel. In January 2002 Bill visited the Ice Hotel with his wife Amy Somrak and their friends Allan and Pat Tuchman. Located in the arctic circle of Sweden, the hotel's owners rebuild the hotel every year. Temperatures outside the hotel can be as low as 40 degrees below freezing; inside the hotel temperatures are a comparatively warm 9 degrees fahrenheit. In this public radio piece Bill examines the hotel rooms, interviews its designer, and probes the hotel's appeal.