John Curl's Blowtorch preamplifier part II

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Not quite, that is only true for FET's with Vp near .6V. High Vp FET's have a nominally 0 TC at a lower current, you could check some data sheets for old 2N series JFET's. Since mobility does not have a linear TC there ends up being some curvature in the end. Another point is that biasing an LTP at 0 TC does not do any good for drift, it turns out the variance in Vp and Idss makes the drift of a diff-pair depend on current ratio. A perfect pair will have 0 drift at any current.

All true mr. Wurcer, but the discussion was in the context of low noise jfets. I'm not aware of any high Vp low noise jfets, in fact all seem to have Vp around .6V.
 
Mon pauvre, je suis tellement désolé.

(that's French, it means I feel truly sorry for your lack of sight and vision, sorta)

x2; I find the whole theorist vs experimentalist and importance of math topic rather short-sighted and patently insulting to all minds involved. There shouldn't be a vs at all.

Good luck advancing your experiments without good theory to guide it. Good luck advancing theory without experiments to validate/invalidate. All of it matters, albeit there's more need (in terms of volume) for experimentalist/applications than pure theory.

And good luck building up any of these theories without a boatload of math that is (okay, I'll be bold and say it out and out) beyond anyone here's understanding.

I ran into my limit way later than most (as I safely assume most of you guys did too), but only at the babiest of baby steps for people in the depths of theoretical math/physics. It was an extremely humbling experience to have my brain slam into a brick wall. Seriously, I was amazed at how my colleagues can/could jump into reciprocal dimensional spaces and work comfortably on the problems that I just got stuck not being able to visualize what was going on.

A lot of what I read above that tries to philosophize or discount the importance of the kind of intellect needed for *that* level of math (or even well of that tip of the iceberg) sounds like utter ignorance mixed with a twinge of envy. What's wrong with acknowledging our own limitations and respecting the contributions of others?
 
It was an extremely humbling experience to have my brain slam into a brick wall. Seriously, I was amazed at how my colleagues can/could jump into reciprocal dimensional spaces...

Oh, I don't know. I have a few PhD level theoretical physicist colleagues. Yes, they are smart and good at math. The way I see it is they are people who besides being smart, like doing math. If I have to do pages of calculations I complain about it, they enjoy it. Well, except one who decided to become a medical doctor instead. Another physicist became a doctor because his parents and family expected it of him, even though he wanted to do physics, but he ended up a full professor of medicine so it turned out okay.

On one occasion, I remember they brought in a PhD physicist to work on a problem, which he did for about 1 year. Still couldn't get the thing working. Finally, someone asked me to talk to him and see if I could help. After a few minutes I showed him the problem, and he protested, "But, there is no theory for that!"
 
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I also really enjoy doing math. In fact, I've done a bunch of math tutoring, with the added bonus that I get paid to teach someone to play with math. I'm simply nowhere near the level *some* of my cohort is at. And that's within EE (although when you're talking nanoparticles/hardcore photonics, good luck not calling it physics), albeit at the UC-level (which is probably a *bit* more theory heavy than a lot of other institutions). I simply try to remain good enough at the math to understand (at a dumbed down level) what some of them do.

And for the record, Mark, my rant was not aimed at you. 🙂
 
Mon pauvre, je suis tellement désolé.

(that's French, it means I feel truly sorry for your lack of sight and vision, sorta)

No brain = no math.

I feel sorry too...
...I hope you are not one of those many people who judge others based upon what they themselves can do and/or are capable of?? Such a thing is not a good assumption.

You do realize that there are people that no matter how you present it, and how many times, will never ever grasp many mathematical principles??

As I said, it takes place IN the brain...

_-_-
 
No brain = no math.

There's more to it that just that.

Some kids are not motivated to pay attention in algebra class, or find themselves in a class where other kids are talking and throwing spitballs, and once you get behind in math it can be hard to catch up. Some are also not motivated to do the homework.

Also, there is some youth culture where it not considered "cool" to be smart, and that further discourages trying to learn.

If we had a culture where being good at math as admired as being good at sports, it might help a lot.
 
For my specialization (circuits) at my uni, the stuff besides calculus 1-3 wass:

ODEs
Linear Algebra
Probability over continuous domains
Stochastic Processes
Boolean Algebra + Group Theory
Analysis of algorithms + Computational complexity
Numerical Methods / Optimization / Advanced linear algebra

Other specializations had to take more math. The E&M guys seem to have the most with the satellite communication guys close behind.
 
Device physics was a lot of Green's functions (the unhappy merging of all the linear algebra and harder integrals) and quantum stuff. The depths of electron transport kinda lost me. I could do okay as long as we stuck to statistical averages. 🙂

Optics/photonics is probably, at least at my uni, closer to "applied physics" as a degree than EE. But there was no more actual math course requirements. You just had to learn it on your own once in grad school.
 
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