TABLE OF CONTENTS Instead of an introductory chapter that presents a mass of text about the history of electronics, or its importance in modern life, this chapter will start right in with experiments illustrating the "inductive kick" that sometimes destroys expensive computers. These experiments also include making a simple radio transmitter of the type that saved 600 people on the ship Titanic.
When electricity flows through a coil of wire, the physical phenomenon of "inductance" becomes strong enough to be easily detected. This is similar to a heavy iron piston moving through a water pipe, along with the water. It is difficult to get it to start moving, but once it moves, the heavy piston is hard to stop. Of course, with the heavy mass of iron, the phenomenon is commonly called inertia. This can be considered to be an "analog" of inductance, which means that, although inertia and inductance are not really the same, they behave similarly in some ways. Electricity moving through a coil (in other words, through an "inductor") is hard to start, but it is also hard to stop after it has started flowing. In fact, it is so hard to stop, that it can cause a lot of trouble if you try to stop it too quickly.
A better understanding of inductance and other features of wire coils will be provided by later chapters in this book. However, in this chapter just the behavior itself will be studied, without analyzing why it behaves this...
