Showerthoughts

29244 readers

883 users here now

A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.

Rules

All posts must be showerthoughts
The entire showerthought must be in the title
Posts must be original/unique
Be good to others - no bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia
Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Night lights that detect light levels are probably flickering so fast that it just appears to be on (lemmy.world)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

17 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Ok so I got this idea not while showering, but because I'm very high. The story does come from my bathroom though! I have a night light in my bathroom, and I was looking at the night light as I turned off the bathroom light. I'm a big nerd so I remembered that the things that detect light levels are actually diodes wired in reverse. I thought it would be funny to make it flicker by reflecting the light back on the diode, but it didn't work. That's when I had this realization

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

You need to research how optical sensors actually work.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

From this source:

A phototransistor is a type of bipolar transistor in which the base-collector junction comes into light. This results in the same behavior of a photodiode

I'm high and I just wanted to post something low effort that I thought was funny. I know it's more complex than the way I described it.

Edit: also, diodes are directional. Saying that a photodiode is "a diode wired in reverse" should be the first sign that I know more than what I'm actually saying. All diodes are capable of reacting to light, a photodiode exploits and amplifies the principle.