Scale Analysis VS Magnitude Comparisons

There are some subtle facts about scale analysis that make it more powerful than simply comparing orders of magnitude. A most remarkable example is that scale analysis can be applied, through a systematic use of dimensions, even when the precise equations governing the dynamics of a system are not known. The great physicist G. I. Taylor, a character whose prolific legacy haunts any aspiring scientist, gave a famous demonstration of this deceptively simple approach. In the 1950s, back when the...

 A Brief History of Signals

Prior to the advent of practical electrical communication, human beings had been signaling over a distance in all kinds of ways. The bell in the church tower called people to religious services or “for whom the bell tolls”—the announcement of a death. We knew a priori several things about church bells. We knew approximately when services were to begin, and we knew that a long, slow tolling of the bells announced death. Thus we could distinguish one from the other, namely a call to relig...

 Production Costs for Antimatter

Fermilab produces antiprotons in medium-energy collisions of protons with a lithium target. Every now and then these collisions will produce an antiproton, which is then directed into the storage ring beneath the buffalo. When operating at average efficiency, Fermilab can produce about 50 billion antiprotons an hour in this way. Assuming that the Antiproton Source is operating about 75 percent of the time throughout the year, this is about 6000 hours of operation per year, so Fermilab produce...