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Interview: Ask Forrest Mims About Rockets, Electronics, and Engineering
With his popular Getting Started in Electronics, and Engineer's Mini-Notebook series and a number of different electronics kits sold at Radio Shack, Forrest Mims inspired countless scientists and engineers. Even though he received no formal academic training in science, Forrest has appeared in 70 magazines and scientific journals. He has worked as a consultant for the National Geographic Society, the National Science Teachers Association, and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Today, Mims works on many scientific projects including climate change research. He's agreed to answer all your questions about science and engineering. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one question per post.
You are the quintessential tinkerer with a non-standard education. What was the key inspiration that started you on this path?
Either give it away or get top dollar, but never sell yourself cheap.
What do you feel provides the most inspiration in others, in particular kids, to learn and do hands on tasks?
Either give it away or get top dollar, but never sell yourself cheap.
Just THANK YOU!
As is typical, you are stranded on a desert island: Which three books on the whole of technology would you bring?
I greatly enjoy your work, and I have started my children off with your books.
Many thanks!
What's your opinion on the old ways, i.e. buying parts locally from Radio Shack and meeting people in local clubs compared to the new online way of buying parts and kits, publishing tutorials and forums full of people helping each other?
More to the point, what do you think has been lost from the old way and what has been gained from the new way?
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
This isn't really a question.
I'd just like to extend a note of appreciation for those books. They were amazingly clear and well written and I learned a great deal from them. I still have my copies (purchased for me by my grandmother) and I still find them useful as a handy reference.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Mims is well known as a creationist. Ask him why he trusts science when it comes to electronics, but not when it comes to biology.
You seem smart and have done neat things, have you considered running?
Please retell the story of how you got started in Model Rocketry and some of your earlier projects, successes, and of course failures. Be sure to name names and clubs!
JJ
Of all the projects you have worked on, what has been your favorite? Personal or professional. (I would like to express my gratitude, getting started with electronics, got me started in electronics and I am now an engineer. I also have a "non-standard" education as they say, having mostly taught myself from reading and taking online free courses.
"Today, Mims works on many scientific projects including climate change research."
To learn whatever's there to learn or to seek evidence to support a previously reached conclusion or opinion?
I forget if you were in PE or R-E or both (and the back issues are in boxes on a high shelf), but I used to enjoy reading your stuff back in the '70s.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
You inspired me to try and learn electronics on my own, but above the basic concepts (what components (resistors, capacitors, transistors, etc...) do and basic circuit analysis), I get lost. For example, for the life of me, I cannot understand how to design a filter. I know what components to use but which values? No idea and I am having a lot of trouble understanding it. There are more examples using OP Amps and transistors other than for basic digital circuits.
So the question: if there are times when you have a hard time understanding a concept, how do you over come it?
grew up on your Popular Electronics crew, all those soldering wizards who educated us all. like to hear the back-story of how you and AT&T got into a cage battle over optoelectronics.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Has science or technology revealed any secrets recently that would change how you teach these topics? For example, when I studied electronics as a kid, the theory was that electrons travelled through conductors at almost the speed of light. I think it's now well know that individual electrons actually travel through conductors quite slowly.
What single book are you the most proud of, and see as your best work? Or which one have you had the most people tell you was _the_ book they use/recommend the most?
I still have my original Blue and Yellow RadioShack Notebooks that I purchased when I was 12. As a practicing professional Engineer now I want to say thanks for that leg up.
For all the kiddies reading this, realize that back in the 80's there were no readily available resource other than small electronic stores and mail order catalogs for young people to feed their interest in electronics. The material that Forrest Mims wrote was an invaluable resource into learning how design digital circuits using the new IC technology for that time.
I never made that flanger/phaser (audio effect) circuit though...
- I stole your sig.
Sir, you were very instrumental in getting me excited and motivated to study electronics as a child, and largely why I am here now.
I have just had a child myself recently. Given the opportunity to motivate and influence a new generation of children, how would you communicate to them differently now?
Thank you, Forrest! You are the best. I am a fanboi. I own all of your electronics mini-notebooks and your _Getting Started in Electronics_. Over the last 15 years they are usually the first place I turn to when I need to make a circuit in support of one of my hobbies. I don't have a question. I just want to say thanks and keep doing what you're doing! And keep those books in RadioShack!
I guess I have one question: How did you get so awesome?
SQUEEEE
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
I'll need blueprints, parts list, etc.
What do you feel about the Maker movement and Makerspaces in general?
It seems to me as the Maker/tinkerer is the new equivalent to the electronics hobbyist. Do you believe new project designs need to keep this in mind? (i.e, present the design of an entire gadget instead of just the electronics)?
Careful, he's going to draw a cute cartoon planet on fake grid-paper with a happy Jesus in the clouds watching over Blessed White Americans driving their Holy SUVs to the gun range. That'll be the extent of his reasoning, but it'll fit on one sheet of paper.
Forrest, in what ways did your mother and father contribute, indirectly or directly, to your eventual success in science and technology?
You've written hobbyist-targetting books with Radio Shack that work through hands on projects hobbyists can do themselves. My question is, for those seeking to carry your mission in writing those books over to computer-aided or simulation based learning, what things of value did you create that will be the hardest to carry forwards and what are the greatest things of value that computer-assistance will uniquely be able to take & make it's own & go furthest with?
What's next? Any new books?
Also, I've noticed that the mini-notebooks seem to have changed. I have what I think is a complete set of the older ones. The new ones appear to be the old ones combined into fewer but larger books. Is that all they are? Or is there new material? I'd like to verify that I have them all or buy any that I am missing but it looks like simply comparing titles will not do the trick and I don't think I want to bring in my collection to compare page by page!
On behalf of myself, and I am guessing, many others here, a heartfelt thank you. I am an Electrical Engineer and am enjoying a great career that has opened many opportunities and let me see the world - largely because of a green, hand-printed, "Getting Started in Electronics" book I noticed in a Radio Shack a very long time ago.
I still reference your books from time to time, and I look forward to sharing them with my kids someday.
Thank you.
73 de VE1SFM.
..don't panic
How do we promote electrical engineering when we're surrounded by an increasingly software & solution based world? Microcontrollers and increasingly so, full-blown microprocessor system-on-chip designs integrate a bedazzling array of top-notch analog and digital peripherals. Watching electronics parts catalogs, there's an ever growing profusion of special-purpose ICs, a low cost on hand solution to every problem. And in this state of being well served, I'm curious how we maintain proficiency, expertise, and interest in hard electrical engineering when soft skill-sets can carry us so far, when so much is provided. It seems great to me that we have NodeBots and AVRs &c &c that get people excited and spooled-up so quickly doing hands on work in amateur and professional electronics projects, but at the same time it seems cause for worry.
Reflecting on myself: I've gone through a number of high speed signals and systems books but still cower in fear for that day when I'll have to wire up DRAM to a microcontroller: I keep fingers crossed that my vendor will include an application note specifically for wiring RAM, that I'll have reference designs I can crib from, and I look forward to the day when RAM comes package-on-package with my micro. I want to have a better mastery of electrical engineering, want to be better equipped to face these challenges, but education has only taken me so far. Or, another example, I can carefully step through design of a flyback converter to plan out the behavior of that analog based system, but these days I'd tend to rely on some microcontroller functionality: take advantage of some comparators and timers, and begin with a much less carefully planned out and much more stripped down set of hardware components that I can fudge into near working order with software.
I'm wondering what the response is, if any, to this shift in skill set, and how we ourselves in touch with and unafraid of first principles, hard as that hardware-oriented knowledge might comparatively be.
http://www.theamphour.com/171-an-interview-with-forrest-mims-snell-solisequious-scientist/
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
Just tossing out a thank you to a wonderful author. I am pleased to hear that you are still alive and kicking! I wish you and yours happy holidays.
I still have the copies I bought in the 80s. I learned more from these books than from the EE course (the intro EE course all engineers have to take).
Which calculator do you use? Or do you no longer need one?
Sure, you can patent something; but, without a huge pool of money for lawyers, the large corporations will just steal your ideas. Or, the off-shore manufacturers will flood the market with your design long before you raise enough money ship something out the door. Is the day of the lone inventor past?
I loved your books back in the 80's; my allowance went to buying them and then to the bits required to make things go beep. Money well spent.
What I loved with the handwritten style and the funky pictures was that they made the subject so accessible as opposed to the extremely dry material generally available. I was watching a video for an EE course the other day and they sucked every bit of fun out of the subject. So again thanks?
Any new books about Arduino (the 555 chip of 2013) or something 21st century?
...if only for that first link. Really, REALLY cool stuff!
I got into Amateur Radio not for the communication aspect of it, but because I am fascinated about radio / light / sound / other electromagnetic waves. Of course you can't read too much on those topics without stumbling onto Nikola Tesla and the conspiracy theories that surround his research. I haven't been able to stop thinking about this little tidbit that I found on the Internets and I wonder if you can comment as to the validity of these claims and why this line of thinking does not appear to be being pursued.
"Counter-space as Tesla and Eric Dollard accurately describes is a wave that does not travel through space per time (like a regular sinusoidal transverse wave), it actually travels per space time (as a longitudinal non transverse wave with an infinite amplitude) - and has the ability to connect two points in space - where - with the waves that Tesla and Leedskalnin worked with - because the amplitude was infinite (e.g. longitudinal) there could not actually be any space in between that 'required' crossing. Exactly hence, why these waveforms exhibited an interesting kind of absent-resistance. And that is why Tesla describes it as a 'means to overcome' distance, because the waves being generated were not per se transmitting faster than C, but rather generating amplitudes that nullified distance as a significant limiting factor in efficacy."
What are your excuses for being so? Why can't you be hipyhop like Justin Beaver. Why are you soooo gay? Do all people get gay and faggy when they get as old as you? What do you think of mandatory exterminations for anyone over the age of 14. Why would anyone want to learn shit when they can immerse themselves in music and blogging. What are the best dance moves. Why is it that black people can be old and still be somewhat cool, but this is completely impossible for white people. In society we have progressed to the point where you no longer have to know things, you just have to be cool. Do you think it is about time we do away with the readin writting and rithmatic in school, and concentrate on important things like creating a positive social vibe, and killer dance moves.
Can you fly?
.
How does one adequately thank a person who provided exactly the right help and encouragement at exactly the right time in a young man's life resulting in a family supporting career and income? Even two wives (nobody's perfect) and daughter owe you a thank you.
While I have fond memories of a few key teachers in some classroom settings, I can firmly point to that Radio Shack purchase of my copy of your "Engineer's Notebook" in 1977 as the real start of my career in Electronics-to-Computers-to-SoftwareEngineering.
I suppose the obvious answer is "Pay it Forward". While I have recommended your books to techno-curious young people I have met over the years, what else can and should be done?
.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
Thank you for "Science Probe!" magazine, which was superb!
Hello Mr. Mims! First of all, thank you for the chance to speak with you. You have inspired so many people, and I for one can say that if it wasn't for your "Getting Started in Electronics" I would never had done so. The handwritten style that you wrote the Getting Started book along with the hand written graph paper style of the mini notebooks made it so appealing and unintimidating. The cartoon drawings of components were very much appreciated! My question is this: Why did you decide to do it in that format? To me it is pure genius. Was that intended to make the recipient more comfortable, or was it just more natural for you? Thank you very much!!! Travis. P.S Are you adopting? I am in my 40's but I promise to take out the trash and mow the yard.
Why not use a dirigible (zeplin) for space launch? 17,500mph at 99 kilometers up is considered orbitable. Why not use use a dirigible in these stages for cheap, heavy lift into orbit: (1) hydrogen lift until the air density is low enough to make pushing a balloon energy efficient (perhaps 60 kilometers); (2) vacuum out the hydrogen as the balance between air density and structural integrate allow and heat it for rocket thrust. Use a large aerodynamic shape such that this thrust pushes the ever lighter vehicle faster, easier.. and so long as there is air resistance, there must also be lift.. When there is no longer air resistance/lift, stable orbit is thereby achievable. Helium balloons have gone as high as 59 kilometers. Hydrogen is far lighter and nothing is lighter than vacuum. A small thorium reactor is perhaps the most ideal choice to heat the hydrogen... which expands quickly and greatly when heated. I do wonder if heat at high speeds in ultra thin atmosphere would pose a problem but if it does, then use that the expand the hydrogen for thrust.... so ever better.
Pneumatic cylinders are stronger per volume but vacuum can be immensely strong, regardless of volume. So if a cylinder is made very tiny but geared up massively then the same pneumatic air tank could give hugely more energy for its volume and structural integrity--right? Some day, building, filling, and dropping cylinders of space vacuum to Earth could therefore be the only truly infinite source of renewable energy. Perhaps vacuum cylinders could even be used to blow back captured air (a vacuum jet) to slow descending space vehicles... Does this seem reasonable?
I had this idea for an FPGA design back in 1981... after reading Gilder's call to waste transistors... and I wonder if you think it might be worth doing even today? I believe that the design space for FPGAs may not have been adequately explored, and as a result we're all living with sub-optimal solutions.
It's very simple.. an orthogonal grid of 4 input, 4 output look up tables, wired to look like RAM to a host, and connect such that each output bit goes to one neighbor, and each input comes from a neighbor. Any logic function can be implemented in this manner (like all modern FPGAs). They could be clocked in A/B/A/B over B/A/B/A to eliminate race conditions, deadlocks, etc.
Bad cells could be routed around almost trivially... the big waste of course, is that without any dedicated routing fabric, all cells in the path of a given bit of data would have to handle it... and the propagation times would be long... but consistent. The advent of memristors makes this an extremely interesting idea to me, once again, as they make LUT costs almost zero.
So.. worth pursuing at all?
I was just today having the almost-annual conversation with some electronics hobbyists about this. Where do you see their business going? Have you ever been involved in their business other than as an author? (Sorry, two questions in one post.) And, as so many others have said: thank you for the education and also VERY much for the graph-paper!
Ok, I had this idea about 10 years ago, but I don't know if it's feasable:
Is it possible to install an alternator into a jet engine? The idea is to provide electrical power to the aircraft, and if enough energy is produced, power a tesla coil at the nose of the aircraft to ionise the gas in front, which should then provide a slipstream style effect, and also radar cloaking.
The idea was based on a few pop-science articles about Russian experiments of ballistics in plasmas, but I don't have the math or the technical knowledge to know if it's practical, or even reasonable. Maybe you will know?
Don't need to judge by the cover, you can read an excerpt here.
I recommend the book highly.
I'm curious what projects you've done around your own home that you think are especially interesting or clever, whether they're ones you'd recommend to a beginner in electronics or not ;) Do you have sensors everywhere? Have you kept a childhood train set alive? Do you have an impressive Christmas display ala the family Grizwold (or Alek's famous lights for charity -- http://www.komar.org/christmas/)?
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Dear Mr Mims, In your interview on The Amp Hour podcast, you mention having super high gain circuitry for some of your detectors and using feedback resistors in the gig ohm range. Are these off the shelf parts or do you fabricate these yourself? What part number op-amps are your favorite for the high performance circuits? Thanks for your time. Chris