I just wanted to write and let you know how much I enjoyed the recent article in TPT by Chris Chiaverina (“Demonstrating the beginnings of radio communications,” Phys. Teach. 59, 664 [2021]) about the coherer. I had never heard of one, and have joked with a couple of my colleagues that if a student had come to us with the design for one, and the suggestion that the piezoelectric grill lighter would trigger it, we would have privately thought they were bananas!
I’m glad you published it in TPT, though I have to admit if I’d been in your shoes I might have taken it to a national meeting and bet physicists $100 each that it would work. I think I could retire on that!
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