スミソニアン博物館さんのインスタグラム写真 - (スミソニアン博物館Instagram)「Without silicon chips, your cellphone would just be a metal-and-plastic box. Silicon is the backbone of the chips that act as your phone’s “brain.” It’s found nearly everywhere (about 90% of the Earth’s crust contains silicon), much of it in minerals like quartz, shown here. Silicon is called a semiconductor because it neither conducts nor insulates electricity—it’s somewhere in the middle. When precise amounts of other materials are added to silicon, its conductivity changes, allowing current to stop or flow. Silicon microchips are covered with transistors, which switch between two states, often indicated as “off” and “on” (or the 0s and 1s of computer language). Millions of transistors working together allow your phone to perform complex tasks. You can see this mineral, plus learn how your phone influences your life and connects you to the natural world, in @smithsoniannmnh's new exhibition "Cellphone: #UnseenConnections."」6月24日 1時00分