Jacques Charles was a French physicist (and a real looker based on that photo) born in 1746. Little is known about his educational and family background, but he began his career as a clerk at the Ministry of Finance in Paris. After a short time as a financial clerk, he began focusing on science. The […]

There's a moral to this story, though it is a bit more of a cautionary tale than most I write. While it doesn't rank with the story of three wise men or even Frank Capra's Christmas classic “It's a Wonderful Life,” you may find some common threads with both learning wisdom and remembering why throwing […]

When I teach electrical basics, we do this exercise where we sit down and connect a 10-watt bulb to a power supply and through a switch. It's a SUPER SIMPLE circuit—the kind you might have learned about in a high school science class. But then I grab another 10-watt bulb and tell them to connect […]