Analogy of a transistor
August 13th, 2007 | by tk2 |Your Ipod has it, your pc can’t work without it, your father’s FM radio use it. I’m talking about transistor, the greatest invention of the twentieth century. It had been almost 80 years after the first invention of transistor, but people still don’t care know how does it works. So here’s an analogy of a transistor in work. Original idea from Masaru Ibuka, the founder of Sony Corporation via JAD TA.
Once upon a time, there was a group of tiny creatures live near a mountain. During the mating season, the females will wait for the males on top of the mountain. But the mountain is too high, making it’s impossible for the males to climb up.
Luckily, mountain’s structure is very fragile. An extra female will decrease the mountain’s height to half…
..so it’s easier for the males to climb up the mountain, creating a gigantic stampede.
The males will bump to each other. Most of them will end up falling downhill.
Only the survivors can have the females. And of course, love=hot=heat.
Back to our transistor, the mechanism is basically the same. The electric current from the Collector can’t flow to the Emitter unless there’s a current flowing from the Base. Even a tiny current from the Base can create a large amount of electrons running from the Collector to the Emitter.
Next time if you notice that your CPU is too hot, it might be the mating season for the tiny creatures.
