P150 How Things Work

All you every wanted to know about your cell phone! AND MORE!

A cell phone is one of the most sophisticated devices that humans have ever carried around in their pocket.

This course will discuss all aspects of the cell phone, including:

A history of telephones leading to modular phones.
How the cell network is designed.
How does roaming work?
What is your ESN, SID, MIN ? And why they are important.
How does your phone receive and transmit radio waves?
How long is your cell antenna?
What is the distribution of cell towers in Bloomington?
What is inside your cell phone?

Topics and components (and the physics behind the object) that will be studied include:

Speakers
Microphones
Memory chips
RF transmitters and receivers
Display screens
Cell phone cameras
Cell phone ring tones
Messaging techniques
Digital sound
Synthetic speech
MP3
Jpegs
Mpegs