Thomas Cuff

Frederick Community College · Computer & Information Science

This is the 1993 thesis entitled "Coherers, A Review" by Thomas Mark Cuff. The printed version of this document can be found in the main library at Temple University; a second printed copy is held in Temple's Electrical Engineering Department. The page count of the electronic version of this document is different from that of the printed version du...

The technical history of the copper oxide rectifier is usually incomplete because it does not discuss the use of Chilean copper in the manufacture of these devices. The best copper oxide rectifiers were made using Chilean copper. This document discusses what is known about the use of Chilean copper in this application. NOTE, there is a newer versio...

Most, if not all, histories of the discovery of quantum mechanical tunneling, do not give credit for its discovery to the person who should have received the credit: Robert Francis Earhart. In 1901, Earhart published experimental results of work he had done on the phenomenon of electrical conduction at very small electrode spacing in a gas. J. J. T...

The Beilby layer is the amorphous or disordered layer created on the surface of some metals and nonmetals as a result of polishing, burnishing, etc. Both the history of this concept from the observations and interpretations of George Thomas Beilby and the still earlier observations by, for example, Erskine-Murray, who showed that mechanical working...

The history and mechanisms behind illumination by light sources utilizing incandescent metal oxides such as limelight, the Welsbach mantle (gas mantle, Auer light, Auer mantle), and the Nernst glower (Nernst lamp) are obscure even today. The same thing is true of the auxiliary technologies associated with these same light sources: the hydrogen-oxyg...

This document is a corrected, revised, and expanded version of an earlier RG document: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334233647_Computer_Memories_A_History_Revision_2. At 68 pages, this is a substantial increase in the size of the original document, which was only 23 pages. I was so surprised at how many people viewed my original document...

The idea of secret writing (cryptography), whether in terms of codes or ciphers, has a long history. Written communication exhibits a number of phenomena with respect to the frequency of occurrence of letters of the alphabet in words. The aforementioned phenomena are true both for single letters and combinations of two letters (digraphs) that appea...

The technical history of the copper oxide rectifier is usually incomplete because it does not discuss the use of Chilean copper in the manufacture of these devices. The best copper oxide rectifiers were made using Chilean copper. This document discusses what is known about the use of Chilean copper in this application. This document is my latest re...

Of all the coherers and MOM 'diodes', undoubtedly the ones constructed of noble metals (gold, platinum, palladium, etc.) present the greatest challenge as far as trying to explain how they work. The main difficulty is in identifying the insulating or semi-insulating film. In fact, a controversy has raged for at least the last hundred years as to wh...

This appendix, Appendix H, to the working copy posted in June 2023, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/371178108_Coherers_A_Review_Rev_10_Working_Copy, of my 1993 MS thesis deals with the subject of the history of the Hall effect.

This document is a corrected, revised, and slightly extended version of "Appendix F - Vacuum Arc, Spark or Discharge" from my 1993 Thesis submitted to Temple University. This is the second revision, Revision 2, and other revisions may follow, time permitting. Because of some technical problems no change bar in the left-hand margin has been included...

This circuit, which is basically two paradox circuits in tandem (series), was first shown to me by Gary Stephens of RG. Again, I have used mesh analysis. I would be interested to know what people think about my solution. Note, I have added a more direct proof of the induced Faraday EMFs in version 7 (12/29/23), see pp. 6-7.

This was basically the first time I had tried to solve one of the paradox circuits using mesh analysis. In the figures on p. 1, no voltage sources, representing the Faraday EMFs, were shown because I was still uncertain exactly how to distribute them.

In this document, I tried to show two things: 1) when you perform the mesh analysis, it does not matter which combination of loops you use; and 2) there appear to be an infinite number of ways to distribute the Faraday EMFs but not really.

In all the examples to follow, mesh analysis will be used to analyze the circuits. This two-page primer explains all the steps you will need to prepare the circuit for analysis. In the case of Faraday EMFs, the most important step is determining the orientation of the voltage source representing the Faraday EMF.

When trying to analyze circuits with Faraday EMFs, many times simplifying assumptions are made, e.g., that the voltmeter is an ideal voltmeter, i.e., that the internal resistance of the meter Rm → ∞Ω. This note shows how this assumption makes it easy to analyze the behavior of a loop consisting of identical resistances separated by ideal voltage so...

The circuit examples in this document come from a 1984 article by Peters. These are some of the simplest circuits having Faraday EMFs, and they will serve as our introductory examples in which we will employ mesh analysis.

This circuit, from a 1995 article by Goldberg & Zik, is one of a class of paradox circuits in which a central loop surrounds, but does not touch, a region containing a changing magnetic field. Across the nodes, P & Q, there are two ideal voltmeters: one above the central loop and one below the central loop. Even though the two voltmeters are across...

Many authors have tried to present tricks to solving the paradox circuits, but sometimes the tricks can be shown to simply be false equivalences. Such is the case with the 1981 article by Klein.

Many authors have tried to present tricks to solving the paradox circuits, but sometimes the tricks can be shown to simply be false equivalences. Such is the case with the 2012 article by McGuyer.

In 1993, as part of my Masters Thesis, "Coherers, A Review", I included an Appendix E - The STM (Scanning Tunneling Microscope). This appendix was my attempt at reviewing the experimental history of quantum mechanical tunneling. I was surprised to find that Robert Francis Earhart, in 1901, had performed experiments that strongly suggested quantum t...

This document contains my analysis of various electronic opamp (operational amplifier), integrator circuits. I combed through patents, databooks, textbooks, reference books, reports, articles, etc. in order to find as many opamp integrator topologies as possible, and then I tried to analyze each circuit to see what the governing equations were. Key...

This is my attempt at showing the derivations of the general case of the Problem of Points in all its possible forms (expressions): 1) Pierre Rémond de Montmort (1713), 2) Galloway (1839), 3) George Boole (1865), and 4) Jacques Dutka (1981). Since I am not sure I have ever seen all such derivations in one place in the open literature, I decided to...

In 1993, I submitted a Master's Thesis titled "Coherers, A Review". I had hoped to revise the thesis, if new materials appeared, either pre-1993 materials or post-1993 materials. I was surprised to discover significant amounts of old and new original source materials. Unfortunately, I was soon overwhelmed with the information, and when I tried to i...

This derivation attempts to understand a proposed method for measuring the precision of the vertical (elevation) angle readings of theodolites and total stations as presented in the ISO 12857-2 (1997) Standard/Norm. The method was originally proposed by Prof. Dr. Rolf Gelhaus. At the time, most theodolite and/or total station manufacturers only mea...

This Method is a set of derivations related to the impulse testing of a piezoelectric shock sensor. There are three ways of mechanically testing such sensors: 1) sinusoidal excitation, 2) impulse excitation, and 3) random noise excitation. As explained in this Method, impulse excitation has many practical advantages. The sensor is approximated by a...

In the 1980s, two groups, one in France (Teissé et al.) and one in Japan (Sakurai et al.) observed increased lateral proton conduction along monolayers formed from well characterized phosphlipids (PL). Both groups concluded that the interfacial layer of water directly below the hydrophillic heads of the PL was the reason because, they reasoned, tha...

This is an electronic schematic diagram of the 2nd laser simulator, which I designed to produce ersatz laser ranging return pulses sitting on top of an optical noise floor. The output of this simulator was used to test the receiver front end of a SLR (Satellite Laser Ranging) transceiver. The difference between the 2nd and 1st laser simulator is th...

Investigate the significance of the antiresonant point in the transfer function of the coupled system of second order differential equations representing a DC , permanent magnet, electric motor driving a load by way of a compliant shaft. Also investigate the validity of the "Acceleration Stabilization" scheme proposed in Richard H. Welch, Jr.'s "Tu...

This zipped folder contains six files: 1) InitialLvlModel.m [A Matlab script that uses SMT (Symbolic Math Toolbox) to solve a 1-D heat conduction problem.] 2) InitialLvlModel.mdl [A Simulink model that solves the same1-D heat conduction problem solved by InitialLvlModel.m.].] 3) InputTxtFile.m [A Matlab script used to import data from the file Temp...

This document explains how to setup the Simulink models TopLvlModel.mdl and TopLvlWConv.mdl so that they make use of the data contained in the file Temperaturemeasurement.txt as an input to the aforementioned Simulink models.

This a series of derivations for a 1-D heat conduction problem wherein the homogeneous, linear PDE (Partial Differential Equation) has its spatial portion discretized. This procedure changes the original PDE into a series of linear ODE's (Ordinary Differential Equations) in terms of the temporal variable. These coupled (simultaneous) ODE's can then...

This method gives a complete derivation of Gibbs phemonenon for both a periodic square wave and an aperiodic rectangular pulse.

Hello All, This document examines the concept of forced binary choice as applied to automatic LS NII (Large Scale Non-Intrusive Inspection) systems used to decide, based on an algorithm inspection of a cargo container radiograph, whether a cargo container at a port of entry contains contraband. I have taken the approach used by Donald G. Morrison...

Hello All, This document is an extension of Part 1 in the sense that it discusses some of the same things, but it does so in a visual way using a Venn diagram to display the space: TP (True Positive), TN (True Negative), FP (False Positive), and FN (False Negative). The question of how one goes about selecting a method to determine the confidence...

In this document, we will be looking at the use of conditional probabilities, a priori and a posteriori probabilities, contingency tables used with ROC (Relative/Receiver Operating Characteristic) analysis, and Bayes’ theorem. We will apply these concepts not to the system for which they were originally intended, radio receivers using noisy communi...

This is a complete derivation showing the mathematics behind a thermal conductivity comparator.

This document reviews the history of digital computers memories up to and including core memory. The exclusion of the pioneering work on memory cores and core memory by An Wang and Jay Forrester, respectively, by some reference books and papers is also discussed. NOTE, there is a new and improved version of this document on RG: https://www.research...

This document is a corrected, revised, and extended version of "Appendix A - MOM Devices" from my 1993 Thesis submitted to Temple University. This is the first revision, Revision 1, and other revisions will follow. Each revision will contain a change bar in the left-hand margin so that anyone who has read the previous version can easily see what ha...

This document is a corrected, revised, and slightly extended version of "Appendix F - Vacuum Arc, Spark or Discharge" from my 1993 Thesis submitted to Temple University. This is the first revision, Revision 1, and other revisions will follow. Each revision will contain a change bar in the left-hand margin so that anyone who has read the previous ve...

Starting from historical research, this work aims first to recall the origin of arc plasma science and one of its most important applications: Wireless Telegraphy. At the beginning of the twentieth century, William du Bois Duddell discovered by chance that the “singing arc”, a carbon arc lamp, was able to generate the propagation of electromagnetic...

English language translation by Thomas Cuff of the French language article: H. Pélabon; Sur la détection et la stabilité de certains détecteurs. [On rectification and the stability of certain detectors.]; Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaries des Séances de l’Académie des Sciences (Paris); Vol. 182; January 11, 1926; pp. 124-125.

English language translation by Thomas Cuff of the French language article: J. Cayrel; Sur la détection des galènes. [On the Detection of the Galenas.]; Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaries des Séances de l’Académie des Sciences (Paris); Vol. 180; June 8, 1925; pp. 1728-1731. Abstract: None.

English language translation by Thomas Cuff of the French language article: Paul Jégou; Phénomènes mis en jeu dans le détecteur électrolytique sans force électromotrice auxiliaire et considération théorique sur le fonctionnement des détecteurs électrolytiques. [Phenomena at play in the electrolytic detector without electromotive force and theoretic...

English language translation by Thomas Cuff of the French language article: Édouard Branly; Radioconducteurs à limailles d’or et de platine. [Radioconductors (coherers) with filings/powders of gold or platinum.]; Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaries des Séances de l’Académie des Sciences (Paris); Vol 127; 1898; pp. 1206-1207. Abstract: None.

English language translation by Thomas Cuff of the French language article: Paul Jégou; Détecteur électrolytiques très sensible fonctionnant sans force électromotrice auxiliaire. [Very sensitive electrolytic detector operating without an externally applied DC bias voltage.]; Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaries des Séances de l’Académie des Sciences (Paris...

English language translation by Thomas Cuff of the French language article: H. Pélabon; Sur la détection. [On Detection.]; Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaries des Séances de l’Académie des Sciences (Paris); Vol. 181; 1925; pp. 776-778. Abstract: None.

English language translation by Thomas Cuff of the French language article: E. Cabanel, J. Cayrel; Effet de pointe et détection cristalline. [Effect of the Point and Crystal Detection.]; Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaries des Séances de l’Académie des Sciences (Paris); Vol. XXX (Vol. 30); December 18, 1933; pp. 1602-1604. Abstract: None.

English language translation by Thomas Cuff of the French language article: Robert Gabillard, Ladislas Raczy; Sur une explication possible de l’effet Branly. [On a Possible Explanation of the Branly Effect.]; Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaries des Séances de l’Académie des Sciences, Series B Science Physiques (Paris); Vol. 252; May 8,1961; pp. 2845-2847....

English language translation by Thomas Cuff of the French language article: George Salmer, Robert Gabillard; Sur la rapidité de functionnement du cohéreur de Branly [On the Rapid Functioning of the Branly Coherer]; Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaries des Séances de l’Académie des Sciences, Series B Science Physiques (Paris); Vol. 262; April 18, 1966; pp....

The STM (Scanning Tunneling Microscope) and SThM (Scanning Thermal Microscope) [a.k.a., STP (Scanning Thermal Probes)] all require heat transfer calculations. This document models and solves the differential equations resulting from the assumption that the tips are distributed as opposed to lumped parameter thermal systems. Keywords: STM, SThM, STP...

If photons, which mediate the electromagnetic field, had a small, nonzero mass, then the potenial expression for a charged particle would look like a Yukawa potential. This document solves for the electric field in closed form arising from this Yukawa-like potential for various charge distributions.

It has been known since about 1890's that applying AC voltage to the primary of a transformer can sometimes lead to damage or destruction of the transformer due to excess current in the primary, see J. A. Fleming; Experiments on the magnetic behavior of transformers at the moment of connecting them to a circuit; Journal of the Institution of Electr...

The MOM (Metal-Oxide-Metal) devices used as diodes and mixers for laser heterodyning have many similarities to coherers. This document investigates the commonalities between these two unexplained technologies. A corrected, revised, and extended version of this document is available at the following URL: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/3341...

Of all the coherers and MOM 'diodes', undoubtedly the ones constructed of noble metals (gold, platinum, palladium, etc.) present the greatest challenge as far as trying to explain how they work. The main difficulty is in identifying the insulating or semi-insulating film. In fact, a controversy has raged for at least the last hundred years as to wh...

A brief technical history of the discovery of vacuum arcs and sparks is given. The converse coherer effect found in vacuum arcs and sparks is mentioned and a citation is provided. NOTE, newer version available, see: Vacuum Arc & Spark, Revision 1 - TrackChanges (June 2019): https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333965210_Vacuum_Arc_Spark_Revisio...

This document contains a brief history of the use of the Beilby layer concept to explain numerous oddities in the physical, electrical and x-ray diffraction behaviors of surfaces as a result of polishing, burnishing or in any other way mechanically deforming the surface layer of metals, alloys, etc. NOTE, a newer version, Revision 2, is also availa...

This is a PhD proposal for investigating CC (Carrier Current) and PLC (Power Line Communications) systems.

Augustus Matthiessen is famous for many scientific discoveries including Matthiessen's Rule, but there is very little biographical information about him available. This document is my attempt at filling in the missing information. I have contacted every organization in the United Kingdom to which he might have belonged during his short life.

Most methods used to experimentally verify Matthiessen’s rule are subject to surface and bulk contamination artifacts due to the methods employed to create the fine metal wires whose resistance is being evaluated. This paper proposes a method of creating metal wires that is potentially free of these contamination artifacts. NOTE, two figure have be...

The CV (Depletion Capacitance verus Voltage Difference) expression for a reverse biased PN junction is a nonlinear expression relating C to V. This expression also contains two parameters, the built-in potential and the doping profile index. I have created a mathematical transformation that allows one to evaluate the two aforementioned unknown para...

Proof that pole-zero cancellation of an unstable system does not render the system stable. This problem was presented on a Temple University, PhD Qualifying Examination, see Problem #3 on p. 2. The two page solution, pp. 3 & 4, is due to Tom Cuff, circa 1993.

This software is an implementation of the algorithm that extracts the parameters of the equation relating the depletion capacitance versus the reverse voltage difference of a PN junction that is discussed in my two ResearchGate documents: 1) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/296704125_Cuff_Algorithm_for_Extraction_of_Parameters_from_C-V_Plot...

Traditionally, there has been no direct way to obtain the values of the built-in potential difference and the doping profile exponent for a PN junction from its depletion capacitance versus reverse bias voltage difference curve. This document demonstrates a method wherein a plot of the integral of CdV versus C^2/(dC/dV) yields a straight line, from...

From an operational point of view, it is important to be able to test the MCP (Micro Channel Plate) PMT (PhotoMultiplier Tube) front end of LIDAR transceivers used in SLR (Satellite Laser Ranging) work. In the day-today operation of SLR systems, one needs to have an independent method of ascertaining that the receiver half of the LIDAR transceiver...

Transparencies shown during the presentation of the conference paper.

This document contains the electronic schematic diagram of the custom made 3 slot NIM (Nuclear Instrumentation Module) 'crate' used to power the various laser simulators. he laser simulators are used to produce ersatz laser ranging return pulses and continuous optical noise floor to test the front end of a SLR (Satellite Laser Ranging) receiver.

This is an electronic schematic diagram of the 4th laser simulator, which I designed to produce ersatz laser ranging return pulses sitting on top of an optical noise floor. The output of this simulator was used to test the receiver front end of a SLR (Satellite Laser Ranging) transceiver.

This is the electronic schematic diagram of a TTL-to-PECL Converter used in Laser Simulator #3. This converter module was required because the laser module inside Laser Simulator #3 required a PECL command signal. Note, the originnal schematic was printed on 11 inch x 17 inch paper, but this version was scanned on a 11 inch x 8.5 inch copier and re...

This is the electronic schematic diagram of a TTL-to-PECL Converter used in Laser Simulator #3. This converter module was required because the laser module inside Laser Simulator #3 required a PECL command signal. Note, the original schematic was 11 inches x 8.5 inches scanned at 1200 dpi x 1200 dpi so that it could be zoomed electronically, but st...

This is an electronic schematic diagram of the 5th laser simulator, which I designed to produce ersatz laser ranging return pulses sitting on top of an optical noise floor. The output of this simulator was used to test the receiver front end of a SLR (Satellite Laser Ranging) transceiver. The difference between the 4th and 5th laser simulator is co...

This laser simulator was designed and built by Richard Chabot for use in testing the LIDAR receiver front end of the MLA (Micro-Laser Altimeter). It is the prototype for the laser simulators designed and built by Thomas Cuff for use with the robotic NASA SLR2k satellite ranging system. Because there was no electronic schematic diagram extant at the...

This is an electronic schematic diagram of the 1st laser simulator, which I designed to produce ersatz laser ranging return pulses. The output of this simulator was used to test the receiver front end of a SLR (Satellite Laser Ranging) transceiver. The difference between the 1st and 2nd laser simulator is that the 2nd laser simulator also produced...

This document contains the electronic schematic diagram of the custom made 2 slot NIM (Nuclear Instrumentation Module) 'crate' used to power the various laser simulators. he laser simulators are used to produce ersatz laser ranging return pulses and continuous optical noise floor to test the front end of a SLR (Satellite Laser Ranging) receiver. Th...

Solutions to selected problems in an EE PhD comprehensive exam. Note, this addendum also contains solution to problems from the 1991, 1993, 1994, and 1995 exams.

Solutions to selected problems in an EE PhD comprehensive exam.

Solutions to selected problems in an EE PhD comprehensive exam.

Solutions to selected problems in an EE PhD comprehensive exam.

Problems in an EE PhD comprehensive exam. Any hints, annotations and/or corrections to the problem statements are made by Thomas Cuff in the accompanying solutions.

Solutions to selected problems in an EE PhD comprehensive exam.

Solutions to selected problems in an EE PhD comprehensive exam.

Solutions to selected problems in an EE PhD comprehensive exam.

Solutions to selected problems in an EE PhD comprehensive exam.

Solutions to selected problems in an EE PhD comprehensive exam.

Solutions to selected problems in an EE PhD comprehensive exam.

Solutions to selected problems in an EE PhD comprehensive exam.

Solutions to selected problems in an EE PhD comprehensive exam.

Solutions to selected problems in an EE PhD comprehensive exam.

Solutions to selected problems in an EE PhD comprehensive exam.

Problems in an EE PhD comprehensive exam. Any hints, annotations and/or corrections to the problem statements are made by Thomas Cuff in the accompanying solutions.

Problems in an EE PhD comprehensive exam. Any hints, annotations and/or corrections to the problem statements are made by Thomas Cuff in the accompanying solutions.

Problems in an EE PhD comprehensive exam. Any hints, annotations and/or corrections to the problem statements are made by Thomas Cuff in the accompanying solutions.

Problems in an EE PhD comprehensive exam. Any hints, annotations and/or corrections to the problem statements are made by Thomas Cuff in the accompanying solutions.

This method is a derivation of the equations used by Jui Hsin Wang in his two 1951 papers on measuring the self-diffusion of water: [1] J. H. Wang; Self-Diffusion and Structure of Liquid Water. I. Measurement of Self-Diffusion of Liquid Water with Deuterium as Tracer; Journal of the American Chemical Society; Vol. 73; No. 2; February 1951; pp. 510...

Two spherical regions, each at a different uniform temperature at t=0. Calculate the temperature in these two spherical regiona for t>0.