3.1 THE BASICS OF ELECTRONICS 43 Name some electrical devices of this kind that you and your family commonly use. Research on electronics is much more recent than studies on electricity. The first studies on electronics date back to the 20th century, but they had a great impulse after the Second World War. ELECTRONICS AND ELECTROTECHNOLOGY Origins The words electronics and electrotechnology both derive from electricity, which has been studied since the 18th century to find out how it could be used for practical purposes, also by transforming it into other forms of energy, for example heat, light, or motion. Most of the devices that we use every day and make our life easier work on the principle of the transformation of electrical energy into other forms of energy . Definitions Electronics is the field of activity that studies how to control the flow of electricity and transform it into signals that carry information . It deals with components and circuits that use electricity at very low voltage. Electrotechnology (or electrotechnics), instead, deals with: cash dispenser: bancomat CT scanner: TAC household: domestico (agg.) loudspeaker: altoparlante vacuum cleaner: aspirapolvere the process of production, transformation, transmission, and use of electrical energy; electrical machines designing and operating; electrical measurements. 110 ELEcTRONIcS AND ELEcTROTEcHNOLOGY Applications of electronics Applications of electronics are really common in almost all fields of everyday life and work: household appliances: washing machines, microwave ovens, vacuum cleaners; office devices: calculators, PCs, scanners, and printers; audio and video: TVs, microphones, loudspeakers, portable MP3 players; medical devices: CT scanners, pacemakers, various types of monitors and meters; security systems: radars, body scanners, missile and rocket launching systems; other applications: barcodes and barcode scanners, cash dispensers, POS terminals, smartphones; industrial automated systems, which have replaced human workers in dangerous jobs or in tasks that require high precision; 3D systems, which have contributed to the evolution of graphics; 3D printers, which are deeply revolutionising the production processes.