What's a "high-frequency radio signal" and how do baby dragons emit it?

[elementofloyalty]

Character(s): Rainbow Dash and Jack Spicer
Location: Engineering Classroom
Rating: PG
Open/Closed/Finished: Closed
Summary: Equestria does NOT have the sort of communications methods that class is talking about.



Since being advised to just mentally replace things she didn't understand with things she did, Rainbow Dash had been doing a lot better in her technology classes. When it talked about planes or airships, she went for pegasi or dragons; when it came to cars and trucks, carts and wagons.

But television? Radio? Microwave communications arrays?! She didn't understand the first thing about any of this! Sure, she understood it was supposed to be some way to communicate, but the closest things she could come up with any of this was magic... and magic sure didn't have all these rules and equations and stuff.

So a sad pony stared at her book in confusion.

Comments

[elementofloyalty]

"Mailponies pick up the mail and deliver it?" She approached the question skeptically because it couldn't be as simple as it sounded. How else would mail work?

"Spike's a baby dragon. I don't know if it's magic paper or dragon magic, but when burns up a letter it reappears in Canterlot with the Princess, and when she sends a letter he just belches it up in a burst of flame."

[bot_builder]

"So you don't know much about your mail system either. Ok... That's probably a good thing, because otherwise this analogy might not work. The first step to understanding all this stuff is knowing what the stuff does. All these different things we're talking about today transmit information. That's sort of the way the mail works. You take a letter (a packet of information), and I guess stick it in a mailbox or give it to the mailpony or whatever (this is like whatever's being used as a transmitter). Then the letter probably circulates around in the mail system a few days? Anyway, it gets shuttled from one place to another, the way information travels via our tech. And when the mailpony gets the letter to whoever it's for, that's like the receiver end of whatever system's being talked about."

He listened to the explanation of Spike with some surprise. "Wow, that's... ok. Did not know dragons did that."

[elementofloyalty]

"Yep, Spike's a pretty useful guy," she said with a grin.

"So... if the words are in one of these things --" She tapped her work console. "Then I should think of it like paper, and if it's supposed to go somewhere else, then the machines do the work of a mailpony and send it to where it's supposed to go?" Putting a hoof to her chin, she turned that around in her head till it made some sort of sense. "Okay, I can get that! So I guess these 'radio' waves are like a pegasus, they fly through the air, and if it goes through 'cables' it's like an earth pony carrying them on the ground?"

No one could call Rainbow Dash stupid. Of course, if you call her an egghead or a book-lover she might get angry...

[bot_builder]

Jack thought about the reply for a moment. "Yeah, that sounds about right... Anything specific bothering you, or was it just the concept?"

[elementofloyalty]

"Well... I get that's how all this stuff works like, but what do electrical magnets have to do with anything?" Rainbow Dash had stumbled on a brief discussion of the communication frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum. What?