Electronics is really an applied branch of physics, so it isn’t surprising that if you are serious about your electronics, you probably know a little physics, too. If you’ve ever heard the term “fine structure constant” and weren’t entirely sure what it means, [Parth G] wants to explain it to you in about a minute. His video explanation appears below.
You may know that the constant, often represented by α, is approximately 1/137, but what does that mean? The answer relates to the orbit of electrons. You might remember from school that electrons orbit in shells around the nucleus. That is, an atom might have some electrons in the innermost shell, and more electrons in an outer shell.
As it turns out, if you look close enough, each of these shells is further divided into subshells, each with a discrete energy level. These subshells are the fine structure the constant refers to.
Each subshell is spaced a bit apart from the adjacent subshells in the same main shell. How far apart? The distance depends on the square of the product of the number of protons in the nucleus and — you guessed it — the fine structure constant.
Granted, maybe you need to know a little more about the fine structure constant, and that’s probably why the video is marked part one. But if you like little bite-sized chunks of physics, [Parth’s] channel has plenty including how to solve Schrödinger’s Equation and intuition about vector calculus operators. Typical of a physicist, [Parth] even tells us that Ohm’s law isn’t as simple as we think it is, although in real life, it almost always is.
We have a soft spot for people who can make physics more relatable. Or anyone, really, who wants to teach the true understanding of math and science instead of just rote formulae.
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