Z G07: Sciences Light & Sound: Radar

A broad look at electronics history is found using this web site. It is broken down into eight categories, which are shown on the main page. The important people who took part in each topic are included on the main page also. You can link forward into the cathode rays/electron, wireless telegraphy, vacuum tube, radio, television, radar, electron/waves or transistors pages. Each page contains a description of the discovery and biographies of the people responsible for its evolution.

Radar antennae are used in our everyday lives and all around us. Find out about some common uses of radar antennae and see how the military uses radar antennae. An engineer in this video explains how radar works and what it is used for. Learn about the way that radar pulses travel. Doppler radar is described. Visit a lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where some of the most advanced radar systems in the world are built and see the technology and materials used.

Explorers once traveled through remote and uninhabited areas, hoping to find clues that would lead to a discovery. Now they have help from satellites and space shuttles orbiting the Earth. From space, you can locate the dry river bed and traces of roads across the desert. Look at the same area using a visible-light image and a radar image. The radar image reveals differences between sand and rocks. Faint lines across the rock reveal ancient camel paths that led to the ancient city of Ubar, a great trading center thousands of years ago.

Radar is an acronym for Radio Detection and Ranging. Radar was invented around the time of World War II in order to detect enemy aircraft. The problem was that rainy weather frequently got in the way of doing this. Meteorologists now utilize this tool to understand weather patterns and help them with weather forecasting. Learn more about how meteorologists use these tools, here.

Radar uses radio waves to track planes in the air, track satellites and space debris, track storms and hurricanes, detect enemies, and guide weapons. This useful technology can even help find things underground or determine how fast something is moving. Echoes are used to determine distances to the object. The sound compression of the Doppler shift also plays a role in radar and sonic booms. Underwater sonar is a sound radar used by ships and submarines. Radio waves travel farther than sound waves in the air. Lidar uses light waves.