this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2024
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If the rise time isn’t 0, it’s not a square wave.
Also (honest question): Is this a hard thing to do in engineering? What makes it hard?
And if that's your definition then there's no such thing as a real square wave.
Just like no physical objects can have a perfectly square corner, there will always be some radius, even if it's just 1 atom
The reason making a true square wave is hard is that there are physical properties of real life electrical components that prevent voltage (or current) from changing instantly. Similar to how we can't instantly accelerate a mass from 0 to some speed, it's physically impossible. The faster you try to do it, the harder it is due to inertia. In electronics, there's always natural capacitance and inductance slowing things down. If you want a 10v square wave, you have to push some amount of electrons through some amount of capacitance and inductance and that, while it can be very fast, is never instant.
The more I read of your answer the more I think I should’ve come to that conclusion myself.
if you get deep enough into software you realize its all ones and zeroes.
if you get deep enough into electronics you learn there's actually no such thing as a 1 or 0. check out the bit error rate of an eye diagram.
lol 0.02 microseconds is 0.00000002 seconds. Don't know electronics tho. No idea what exactly makes it difficult.
It’s difficult because a rise time of zero is physically impossible. You can’t instantaneously jump from one voltage to another in real life; There’s always a transient response. Circuits are made of physical components and electrons are moving objects.
Its hard. Not so hard as almost 100 years ago tho.
Lol