An Electric Lesson

[ddl]

In Physics, just about all the systems, electrical ,mechcanical, fluid, the properties have counterparts that are the same execpt in names. Such as in the fliud system flow rate is the same as current. Pressure is the same as voltage and so on. But the heat system is different, for the the work done is actually energy as in heat and heat rate. They do not equate to current and voltage. So if you make it work for you, good but becare whom you tell. If they know Physics, you may get an arguement. In the fliud system, PSI is the same as voltage, a force. The flow rate, gal/min id the same as current, the roughness of the inside of the pipe and the size of the pipe is the same as electrical resistance. Nothing happens in the fliud system until pressure is applied, and the fliud is forced through the pipe and depending on the resistance of the pipe, the flow rate is the result of pressure and pipe resistance. Fairly easy.

Dan L

 

[cowboydoc]

Ok now you guys are really getting deep into theory. I'm glad I bowed out of this one!!! Could we talk about rotator cuff syndrome for awhile. That doesn't hurt my head as much.

 

[StoneHeartFarm]

Dan

Thanks. It's just always bothered me that I can hook up my tester and use it, run my beeper over the wall looking for hot wires, plug into outlets checking for ground and run the basic amp/volts/watts equations, and yet I DON'T know what's acutally coming out of the outlet or what I'm actually testing FOR. Kinda makes me a caveman playing with a bic.

SHF

 

[Charlie_Iliff]

Joe_W:
When you started a thread of pure whimsy, did you assume that it would progress through alternating current power grid distribution to electrical theory at the atomic level. But a question. Weren't you really trying to spark a discussion of Edison'e commitment to direct current distribution as opposed to Tesla's wireless projects?

Charlie Iliff

 

[DVerbarg]

Charlie,

Ok, I'll bite. Years ago a friend of mine told me about Tesla and I just dismissed it as some fanatical stuff (this friend was rather passionate about whatever he believed, made for interesting discussions). He had interesting stories about Tesla whom I had forgotten about until now. I assume that I can go to the library and find books about him. Any recommendations on good starters?

DaveV

 

[Charlie_Iliff]

I don't have any specific recommendations for written materials. An internet starting point, however, might be
http://www.tesla.org/. Followers of Tesla have been known to brown out their neighborhoods while charging devices to jump sparks (lightning) considerable distances. I saw a video a while back of a society meeting in a luxury hotel, in which arcs twenty or so feet long were created in the ballroom.
As I recall, Nikola Tesla died broke after years of experimentation and research. His current followers include gleeful fanatics as well as serious experimenters.
You can start by purchasing your very own Tesla coil and who knows - maybe you'll prove wrong all of the scientific information presented in this thread - except, of course, the first post that started it all. The contents of that one are beyond challenge.

Charlie Iliff

 

[TWINKLE_TOES]

Dan,

The views that I have attempted to reflect are those expressed in specific writings by:

Jacob Millman, PHD Proffessor of Electrical Engineering Columbia University
Herbert Taub, Ph.D. Associate Proffessor of Electrical Engineering, City College of New York
James A. Richards Drexel Institute of Technology
Francis Weston Sears Dartmouth College
Mark W. Zemansky, College of the City of New York
Linus Pauling Professor of Chemistry California Institute of Technology

I will be happy to provide specific reference to those writings.

If you would be kind enough to provide specific references to writings from credible sources for your view, I would appreciate that.

If you are correct, I will be happy to inform the above esteemed group (or their survivors) that they have been wrong for all these years and that a proffesor of ?? with 16 years of experience has the proof and provide them with your references.

Al

 

[Charlie_Iliff]

http://www.yale.edu/scimag/Archives/Vol71/Tesla.html
has a bit of Tesla's bio. Internet research on Tesla is great fun, since his proponents claim he invented everything but Russia, the FBI grabbed his records from his New York hotel when he died, and hid everything so that powerful interests wouldn't be damaged.
It does appear that he was a pioneer in AC current transmission, but his dream of transmitting energy through the air hasn't yet come to pass.

Charlie Iliff

 

[Charlie_Iliff]

Al & Dan:
This thread, like the speed of light thread, has been great fun, particularly for those of us whose genuine scientific training was a lot of years ago, and superficial compared to those in science or engineering. As I studied college physics in 1960, I remember my professor being vastly entertained that engineers still calculated their circuits according to the theory that current flowed from positive to negative. Since current flow was a convention derived for engineering calculations, the then belief that electricity was composed of electrons flowing in the opposite direction did not really "disprove" the convention. The convention was and may still be valid for engineering calculations and communication among circuit designers. The theory that electrons moved through a wire may now be supplanted by theory which doesn't actually have an identifiable electron moving the length of the conductor (or we may run afoul of Dr. Heisenberg, among others), but mathematical models created on the electron-movement hypothesis may still validly predict energy transfer.
So a question to you both. Are you really disagreeing, or are your differences in part in convention and terminology, and part in discussion of theory as to which the actual answers may not even be knowable, such as the velocity of any particular electron?
[As an aside, I studied Linus Pauling's Chemistry text in college. It was superb. Later, however, he became such a fanatic for vitamin C that if he'd been correct, we'd all live to be 150 by eating lots of lemons. I don't remember, of course, what his book said, if anything, about electron flow vs. charge.]


Charlie Iliff

 

[glennmac]

Linus Pauling's vitamin C is, of course, an antioxidant. That means it adds electrons to the free radicals in your body to prevent the free radicals from oxidizing your body and making you an old geezer. Thus, vitamin C sets up an electron flow in your body--or is it just a charge flow? In any event, if you eat a lot of vitamin C you will repel static electricity and you also won't get poison ivy.

 

[cowboydoc]

Glenn,
Well there's on theory out the window. I take 2000 mg of vitamin C a day and I've got poison ivy!!

 

[Charlie_Iliff]

As I recall from the 60's, free radicals wouldn't have anything to do with electrons or other negatives except while under the influence of medications having nothing to do with vitamin C.
And who you calling an old geezer, anyway.

Charlie Iliff

 

[ddl]

I don't think we are disagreeing at all. The disussion of current flow being from neg. to pos. or pos to neg is also never ending until you ask them if they calculate voltage and use current and it flows from neg to pos, why do you not use the negative current since it would be. Most people just forget the minus and do the calculation as if current does flow from pos to neg. From my physics classes, i use the idea that charge flows from a high potential to a low potential and the high potential my be caused by either a positive or negative force. All circuits are easy to explain if you follow this thought. About textbooks, you can select textbooks that use electron flow or conventional current flow. Which is right and if one is right , why do they sell so many of the other? Just some thoughts.

Dan l

 

[heehaw]

i'm really enjoying this post, even though i plan to stay out of the serious parts of it, except to say i am surprised no one has brought up "holes/hole flow"?? i figured out the shortage of electricity, to many folks are using 220v equipment, which doesn't send the electricity back down the return line when your finished with it..220v equipment messed up the "whole" thing./w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif
heehaw

 

[StoneHeartFarm]

Dan

Just a couple more quick questions:

Do I understand correctly that there is some disagreement among the experts (text book authors) as to what electricity actually is?

If no electrons are moving down the wire, what causes the spark of light on a spark plug? I always assumed it was electrons jumping the gap. Is the charge in the wire somehow releasing electrons from the posts?

SHF

 

[Gomez]

Hmmm. This could explain why most Electrical Engineers are the way they are.

(Zipped wav file)

 

[Charlie_Iliff]

Dan: re your rhetorical question:

About textbooks, you can select textbooks that use electron flow or conventional current flow. Which is right and if one is right , why do they sell so many of the other? Just some thoughts.

I suppose the philosophical answer is that neither is right and neither is wrong. Both reflect attempts to devise language to describe physical phenomena, and they employ mathematical models to predict electrical performance. It does impose the requirement of determining which convention(s) are being used in a particular project, however. Otherwise, components purchased at Radio Shack in blister packs may let their allotment of smoke out and you have to go buy some new ones with fresh smoke.


Charlie Iliff

 

[john4nh]

I thought I would pass this along. I just got out of a weekly meeting (SHELL OIL COMPANY) todays topic was about eletrical safety. They also touched on at home situations. They said that a breaker you buy or comes with your home is only guaranteed one trip from the factory. Of course how many of us has ever replaced one that has tripped once and was able to be reset. This is off subject but none the less I thought interesting. Just curous if the experts on this board have ever heard of this?

 

[ddl]

What causes the spark is the energy level difference. The spark is actually "burnt air" or the trail the charge took. For every amount of charge, you have a set amount of electrons. Most of the time it is like who came first, the chicken or the egg. The real question is doe it matter. No for wheather you use electrons or charge, the result is the same, just makes interesting discussion.

Dan L

 

[ddl]

Very well said

could not have said it better

I was in a class once where the instructor tried to tell everyone that the antistatic bags that parts come, must be turned over at the end and stapled shut or else static charge would crawl into the bag and damage the part. I do not think he has figured out why I laughed so hard when I heard that one.

Dan L