Topic
Electricity
4 articles
Technology
Why does your phone die in the cold?
You go outside with a healthy battery and the screen is black within twenty minutes. Bring the same phone indoors, plug in nothing at all, and most of that battery comes back. Nothing was ever spent.
Technology
How does a chip add two numbers when it cannot count?
A phone works out sums faster than you can blink, and nothing inside it can count to three. So something else has to be doing the arithmetic.
Technology
How does a touchscreen tell your finger from your glove?
Pull a glove on and your phone stops answering. The glass is the same and the push is the same, so something else about a bare hand is doing all the work.
Technology
Why does a lightbulb blow the moment you switch it on?
Bulbs almost never quit while they are quietly glowing. They wait for the flick of a switch, then go with a flash and a small tink. Something about that first instant is rougher on the wire than a whole evening of burning.