this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2025
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I've taken so many computer science classes and lectures but I still don't know what it is, exactly, that makes us able to tame lightning and have it produce moving images that we can control.
Like, I know how a transistor works, but not why it works. There's just a disconnect between what science can actually tell going on between "what electricity is" and "making this little metal loop we can trap the lightning and enslave it to our will."
I have trouble describing what I want to know that's missing so it probably is doubly hard to explain that thing I am trying to describe. π΅βπ«
βIt doesn't stop being magic just because you know how it works.β β Terry Pratchett
I think youβre missing what at my university is the course: Solid State Physics, followed by a manufacturing course that may contain a lab.
This covers the physics of transistors and the basics from crystals, how to modify the properties of a crystal, and quantum effects. Then you will know how electricity affects a transistor (through field effect).
Basically if you have two wires that are open, then run a live wire near these two wires, the two wires will close. Thatβs a very high level overview of a field effect transistor.
Building registers and such helps. It's very achievable.... You can physically build memory or a nand gate on a breadboard
I don't know how I'd jump the gap from minerals to transistors, but I know how they're arranged
When you say you know how a transistor works, what does that mean? Are you talking about "voltage on one wire controls current on another wire" or are you talking about "silicon is doped with other elements to create areas in the metal with more and less electrons"?
Sounds like an absolute failire of electrical engineering teachers.