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Showing posts from January, 2025

The Costas Loop - Dr. John P. Costas

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The Costas Loop and the Best Engineer. By Bill Jones.   This paper is to note some of the work of Dr. John P. Costas and to tell of my work and thoughts of my time with John. He was the best engineer that I have ever known. His work was in a relatively narrow field not well known by most engineers. His work was done starting at General Electric in the early 1950’S and continued over his life time. He contributed greatly to several areas of communications, Sonar and mathematics, for example, the Costas Array. He wrote many papers with some being classic. He continued as an inventor even after his retirement. The term Engineer goes back some years, probably to the 1300’s AD. While I do not mean to compare Dr. Costas to these early genius engineers it should be clear that these early engineers did provide the great foundations we have in our present day curriculums. I am thinking of John as a man that used the foundations to invent an outstanding system - the Costas Loop. ...

The Hindenburg Disaster Cause

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The Hindenburg Disaster Cause February 25, 2017 By Bill Jones. There are many articles on the cause of the Hindenburg disaster. These articles discuss the possible causes. There are a number of theories.  One important theory is that the fabric was ignited by a spark caused by the Hindenburg being electrically charged.  It was certainly   electrically charged, but the question in doubt is how did this electrical charge cause the fire.    Another theory is that the Hindenburg, on its final approach to landing made two sharp turns because of wind shifts. These turns were beyond the design specifications of the aircraft. It is suggested that a thin steel structure wire broke and whipped into a hydrogen gas bag. It is said that it broke because of the sharp turns. There were many such thin steel wires between the air bags. The hydrogen then leaked from the bag and passed through air vents that were in the top of the aircraft. The hydrogen was then ignited by co...