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Did you have a teacher that sparked epiphanies?

dougw

Did you ever have a teacher who presented material in a way that led to you have an epiphany, where the concept just clicked?

  • Like realizing that the derivative of a waveform at a point is simply the slope of the waveform at that point
  • Or understanding that the integral of the waveform is simply the area under the curve
  • Or how negative feedback makes an amplifier predictable
  • Or how a dielectric affects capacitance

What concepts do we now take for granted that when you first came across them, they were magic?

Parents

  • The one that comes to mind was at the Army's Prime Power course when we did operations - running generators in parallel (many years ago).  I think her first name was Pam.  I can't remember her last name right now, but she was one of maybe two ladies in that career field.  Anyway, paralleling to the infinite grid (utility) is crazy simple.  Paralleling to another generator that may not be of similar size... much less so.  What you do to one impacts the other.  Sitting around the breakroom table, she explained the cause and effect in "simple terms" that turned the light bulb on for many of us.  Operating became much easier after her explanation. 

  • in reply to kmikemoo

    did it involve a synchroscope meter ? 

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  • in reply to robogary

    Some of them had synchroscopes.  Some only had the lights.  The synchronizing and throwing the breaker was always cool - but then you needed to have your wits about you.  You may have put the unit online, but now you have to keep it there.  Joy   The reverse power relay is VERY unforgiving.  And you can't just focus on the kW load.  You've got to get right on the kVARs as well - otherwise excessive amps and... you're off line.

    The "newer" units had power factor meters.  The EMDs had kVAR and kW meters - so you had to do math to know what the power factor was.  The really old Cats only had excitation current meters so you had to do calculations in your head on the excitation current required. 9 amps per 50kW for a 0.8pf.

    Electronics has made all of this obsolete, but in its day, this was what we needed to know to turn the lights back on.  Sometimes we were lucky and the load didn't change much.  That made for really, really boring shifts.  Other times,,, it was Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.