Waveforms other than those that are pure sine waves or sinusoidal will have a portion of their energy in frequencies other than the fundamental. These frequencies are known as overtones. Some but not all overtones are harmonics. The difference is in how we define them. A harmonic has a frequency that is a whole integer multiple […]
Basics of quartz crystal oscillators
Some materials acquire an electrical charge when they are compressed or otherwise dimensionally stressed. They are said to exhibit the piezoelectric effect. If the property is to be manifest on any but an atomic level, the material must be a crystal, with the atoms organized in a lattice. The piezoelectric effect was first described in […]
Basics of analog-to-digital converters
We straddle two realms, analog and digital. The output of a sensor, musical instrument, the human voice, and most of the signals that originate in the real world are analog. Today most information processing is digital. This works well in terms of audio and video quality, but analog data must be converted by an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) […]
