Science

Todays candles have been optimized not to flicker. But it turns out when we bundle three of them together, the resulting triplet will start to naturally oscillate. Amazingly, the frequency is rather stable at ~9.9 Hz as it mainly depends on gravity and diameter of the flame. We detect the oscillation with a suspended wire and divide it down to 1 Hz.

Explores analog chaos with Schmitt triggers, filters, and feedback to create Chua-like oscillations on breadboard.

Revisits the CDC6600’s resistor-transistor logic to explain how clever circuit tricks delivered 36 MHz performance.

Can we reverse engineer the flickering pattern of a real candle to improve artificial candle LEDs? Measuring and analyzing the temporal light output of a real candle.