Wouter van Ooijen wrote:
>> a few people came to me, VERY smart people,
>> asking which side of a diode was the cathode...
>
> Probably not comparable, but I still don't remember and probably never
> will. I know the band corresponds to the line-side in the symbol, and I
> know which way the current flows. That's all I need.
>
> To recall which side is the cathode I have to go through a mental
> process: Cathode. There used to be cold-cathode tubes. So the default
> cathode was warm. So that's where they boiled the electrons. So that was
> the negative side. Current flows towards the electrons-side, so the
> cathode is the band. Amazingly, I get the process right about 50% of the
> time.

Wouter, you keep bringing this up... memorize it already! :)

Considering how much other stuff you keep stored in your mental attic, I 
think it's a shame not to remember the basic stuff that we all expect first 
year EE students to know.

Vitaliy 

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