Path: ...!3.eu.feeder.erje.net!feeder.erje.net!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
Subject: Re: CO2 Funny
Date: Mon, 27 May 2024 00:07:54 +0200
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
Lines: 57
Message-ID: <v30bo1$3knf2$1@dont-email.me>
References: <54np4j5eq0gga4u24i69i6sechie1ohcjd@4ax.com>
 <ionp4jpskmjj3t5ge13jtvbmg6n3g0m738@4ax.com>
 <mssr4jh13hf2p7deu8phdkkda50roask0p@4ax.com> <v2ktll$17293$1@dont-email.me>
 <o61s4jhh7krhb55lo3c40r5mn2f9nkk1n3@4ax.com>
 <2k9s4j94256k6gbapd5snscqosn3b53ici@4ax.com>
 <aebs4j5fhoja2c3q718r4l7dqh9gp28sj6@4ax.com> <v2na16$1nvei$1@dont-email.me>
 <v2tb6t$tve$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com>
 <v2uhs7$39s6m$1@dont-email.me>
 <v2vul6$1ke5$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com>
 <f9a75jt01evpresfq5ke5rqmuchgbdab1b@4ax.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Injection-Date: Mon, 27 May 2024 00:05:54 +0200 (CEST)
Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="e0754e8c61e23bd1ff3074218b49eb30";
	logging-data="3825122"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org";	posting-account="U2FsdGVkX18S/cnIhzUr++X/xoH//213"
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:102.0) Gecko/20100101
 Thunderbird/102.13.0
Cancel-Lock: sha1:mMFHrruB/InLZV4pD7+yGsMZCaY=
In-Reply-To: <f9a75jt01evpresfq5ke5rqmuchgbdab1b@4ax.com>
Content-Language: en-US
Bytes: 4089

On 5/26/24 23:31, john larkin wrote:
> On Sun, 26 May 2024 14:22:28 -0400, "Edward Rawde"
> <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> 
>> "Bill Sloman" <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in message news:v2uhs7$39s6m$1@dont-email.me...
>>> On 26/05/2024 4:38 am, Edward Rawde wrote:
>>>> "Bill Sloman" <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in message news:v2na16$1nvei$1@dont-email.me...
>>>>> On 23/05/2024 3:52 am, john larkin wrote:
>>>>>> On Wed, 22 May 2024 18:10:58 +0100, Pomegranate Bastard
>>>>>> <pommyB@aol.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>> ...
>>>>>
>>>>> John Larkin doesn't seem to 'design" anything. He throws together the stuff he sells like every other tinkerer.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Why does that matter to you so much?
>>>>
>>>> I have two books in front of me.
>>>> One is "Introduction to Solid State Physics, C. Kittel"
>>>> The other is "FET Circuits. Rufus P Turner"
>>>>
>>>> If I open the physics book at a random page I find a contour integral.
>>>> I wasn't bad at math and can handle contour integrals but it is also true that I grew up in a very practical electronics
>>>> environment
>>>> where getting things working was way more important than understanding every little detail of the theory of how they worked.
>>>
>>> I got into electronics while a I was doing a Ph.D. physical chemistry. Win Hill started a Ph.D. in chemical physics, but had better
>>> advisors.
>>
>>> Getting things working is always important, but understanding the detail of what's going on can be vital to getting them to work
>>> well.
>>
>> So both of these are needed if you want the best design.
> 
> Not really. Understanding at some level can help a lot, but it's not
> necessary. Besides, we don't actually understand what we're doing, all
> the way down to the quantum mechanics.
> 

You have to choose the abstraction level appropriate for the task
at hand. I you choose wrong, it will only bog you down. For most
discrete designs, you don't need a very detailed understanding of
semiconductor physics, but you have to know the device
characteristics. For opamp or logic designs, you don't need the
characteristics of the devices that compose an opamp or a logic
gate. For FPGA logic design, you hardly need to understand logic
gates anymore. To program a computer, you don't need to understand
CPU architecture. And on it goes.

Jeroen Belleman

(Give a researcher the task of banging in a nail. First he'll study
hammers. Before you know it, he'll be studying advanced metallurgy.)