So
Bolder in Boulder had one of those funny blog memes that float around. I wasn't tagged, but had to try it as the difference between this one for me at work and at home will be dramatic. At work:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Name the book and author: Laser Electronics by Joseph T. Verdeyen
3. Turn to page 123.
4. Go to the fifth sentence on the page. Copy out the next three sentences and post them to your blog: This is in Chapter 6, "Resonant Optical Cavities." "There is always an interchange of energy in such a system between potential and kinetic forms in the case of a mechanical system, with attendant friction losses, or between electric and magnetic energy with resistive losses in an electromagnetic problem. Quite often, the phenomenon of resonance gets lost in the mathematics when analyzing a low-frequency system; fortunately, a much simpler physical picture emerges when we consider systems where the wavelength is much less than the physical dimensions of the components. In order to make the problem as familiar as possible, we consider the excitation of the cavity shown in Fig. 6.1 by an external source, such as a tunable laser or a variable-frequency oscillator."
5. Tag three more folks. I think I'll skip this step. I don't play well with others.
This is a textbook from my senior year electrical engineering class on, you guessed it, lasers. It was actually a very good class, despite what the dry text above might suggest. Its only downside was its time: T Th at 9 a.m. Tuesday was particularly bad because we spent every Monday night at the
The Elephant Room for the Jazz Jam, which didn't really get going until about 9:30 or 10:00.
Now, if I'm still out of bed at 9:30 p.m., I consider it a noteworthy event.
