Reels tagged #technology
The internet travels as pulses of light
Fibre optic cables carry data as laser light bouncing inside glass thinner than a hair, moving at roughly two-thirds the speed of light in vacuum.
Almost all international data crosses the seabed
Satellites carry a tiny share — around 99% of intercontinental internet traffic runs through submarine cables, some no thicker than a garden hose.
GPS would fail without Einstein
Satellite clocks tick faster in weaker gravity and slower from speed. Without relativity corrections of about 38 microseconds a day, positions would drift kilometres off.
Moore's law was an observation, not a law
In 1965 Gordon Moore noticed transistor counts doubling roughly every year, later revised to two. That guess became the industry's roadmap for half a century.
Your battery works by shuttling lithium ions
Charging pushes ions into the graphite anode, using them pushes them back. Each cycle degrades the structure slightly — which is why batteries age.
Touchscreens sense your body's electricity
Capacitive screens hold a tiny electrical field; your conductive finger distorts it, and the phone calculates where. That is why gloves usually do not work.
Data centres spend enormous energy just staying cool
Cooling can account for a large share of a facility's power, which is why operators build them in cold climates, underwater, or run them warmer on purpose.
Wi-Fi grew out of radio astronomy
Key patented techniques came from CSIRO researchers in Australia working on signal problems from exploding black holes — maths later used to clean up indoor radio echoes.
The QR code was invented to track car parts
Denso Wave created it in 1994 for Toyota production lines, needing a code readable from any angle and still scannable when partly damaged.
Quantum computers run colder than deep space
Superconducting qubits operate near 10 millikelvin — colder than the cosmic background — because the faintest heat destroys their fragile quantum states.
The transistor is the most manufactured object ever
Invented at Bell Labs in 1947, transistors now number in the sextillions. More are produced each second than all the grains of rice eaten worldwide in a year.
Two people invented the microchip months apart
Jack Kilby demonstrated an integrated circuit in 1958 and Robert Noyce independently designed a better silicon version in 1959. Both are credited with the invention.
The first internet message crashed after two letters
In 1969 a UCLA team tried to send LOGIN to Stanford over ARPANET. The system crashed after LO, making the internet's first word an accidental lo.
Air conditioning was invented to fix smudged ink
Willis Carrier built the first modern AC in 1902 for a printing plant where humidity was misaligning colours. Cooling people was a side effect.
3D printing is nearly 40 years old
Chuck Hull patented stereolithography in 1986. Layer-by-layer printing now makes jet parts, houses and human tissue scaffolds.
The washing machine gave back a full working day
Hand laundry took most of a day each week. Electric washers, common from the 1920s, are ranked by economists among the most liberating machines ever built.
South Korea pioneered the fastest internet
Aggressive fibre rollout gave the country years of world-leading average speeds and a gaming culture strong enough to make esports a televised national sport.