Technology
Discover facts about technology. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Technology
Steganography conceals secret messages in plain sight
Encryption scrambles a message; steganography hides the fact that a message exists. Altered image pixels, for example, can carry data without making a picture…
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Why new chips are getting glass foundations
As processors grow more complex and hotter, plastic foundations can warp; manufacturers are turning to glass to keep the chips flat.
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A computer can sit in oil without drowning its circuits
Suitable mineral oil is electrically insulating, so it can surround compatible electronics while carrying heat away. Water containing dissolved ions would…
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Why computers can play chess but struggle to walk
Chess provides explicit rules and a defined board, while walking through the world requires continual sensing and control under changing conditions. Moravec’s…
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Ball grid arrays rely on melting microscopic balls
Hundreds of tiny solder balls connect the chip to matching motherboard pads; heating the assembly melts them into joints. Repair requires carefully controlled…
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When old magnetic tape turns into sticky goo
Moisture makes the binder holding magnetic particles to the plastic backing break down into sticky sludge. Archival tapes are sometimes baked to make them…
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Vapor chambers spread heat via micro condensation
As liquid evaporates and condenses inside the flat chamber, a microscopic copper wick returns it to the chip’s hot spots, spreading heat across the surface.
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Chipmakers are running out of room for ordinary transistors
As transistor components shrink, controlling electrons becomes harder: tiny barriers can allow leakage through quantum tunneling. Engineers respond with new…
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Why electron microscopes need a vibration-free room
Electron microscopes can resolve details at the scale of individual atoms, so even vibrations from a passing truck can blur the image.
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Radio waves travel at the exact same speed as visible light
Radio waves and visible light are both electromagnetic waves. Radio waves have much longer wavelengths, but in a vacuum they travel at the same speed—about…
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Helium lets hard drives pack in more spinning platters
The gas is much less dense than air, reducing drag and turbulence inside a sealed drive. Platters can sit closer together while the mechanism uses less power.…
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Why silicon wafers are cut with diamond
Silicon crystals are hard but brittle, so manufacturers use rapidly spinning wire saws coated in diamond dust to slice them into thin wafers.
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Williams tubes relied on firing electrons at glass
A Williams tube stored data as tiny static charges on a glass screen; the computer read their positions before they faded away.
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Three laws of robotics are completely fictional concepts
They were fictional rules invented by Isaac Asimov as plot devices, often designed to fail—not real legislation governing AI.
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Why computer connectors are gold-plated
Gold isn’t the best electrical conductor—copper and silver conduct better—but it resists reacting with oxygen, so contacts don’t tarnish and lose conductivity.
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Mica sheets insulate high voltage without melting
A thin sheet of mica electrically insulated a component from the metal chassis while still allowing heat to escape.
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The unbreakable code with one impossible catch
A truly random key as long as the message makes a one-time pad unbreakable—but sender and recipient must securely share that enormous key in advance, and…
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How a microchip gets boiled in acid
To expose a chip's microscopic circuits, researchers carve a well into its plastic casing and fill it with fuming nitric acid, boiling the plastic away until…
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Magnetic bubble memory tried to ditch moving parts
Tiny magnetic bubbles moved along tracks in a thin film to store and retrieve data, avoiding the need to spin a disk. The approach was eventually overtaken by…
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Your graphics card's squeal can come from vibrating coils
That high-pitched noise can be coil whine, not a failing fan: electrical forces make the copper coils in a graphics card’s inductors vibrate rapidly.
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Industrial robots first started diecasting in the sixties
The first industrial robot, Unimate, moved hot metal parts at a General Motors plant. It weighed two tons, ran on a magnetic drum, and repeated the same task…
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A Peltier tile makes one side cold by heating the other
Electric current through the device moves heat from one face to the opposite face. Cooling still requires removing heat from the hot side, including the heat…
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Candela measures luminous intensity based on wax candles
The candela’s name and history reach back to candles, but the same unit is used to measure the luminous intensity of modern LEDs and lasers.
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Gallium arsenide moves electrons faster than silicon
Its faster-moving electrons make gallium arsenide useful for high-frequency chips, but the material is brittle, expensive to manufacture, and highly toxic.
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