(A) I agree with that observation.
(B) The ONLY reason terms like phase shift,sinewave,waveform,sinusoidal, reactive power (and the list go's on) dragged into a discussion here on TBN,is to find who can pee highest on the wall. It's a kid's game that men with feelings of insecurity play.
(C) I challenge anyone to tell us in layman's terms why our TBN members need to understand terms listed in B above and/points made in preceding posts.
(D) For the benifit of those who are being lead to belive they must know this stuff in order to troubleshoot their tractor,home lighting,home appliances,central heat and air and 99.9% of anything else in the rest of their lives. I ask those who are comfortable troubleshooting electrical on tractors,cars and home,do you understand all this (I certainly do'nt)? Would you encourage diy homeowners and motorests to study theory of AC current?
It is important to understand that the power delivered to your home is in the form of two phases. And that 1/2 of your electrical panel is one phase and the other half is the other phase, and you would profit greatly if you looked at the panel BEFORE any breakers are put into it to see how the phases are interleaved and actually appear on BOTH sides of the breaker slots. So when you put a double sized breaker in for a 240 volt application like your welder, then one wire is on one phase and the other wire is on the other phase.
There is no reason you cannot understand the concept of a phase and what that means by looking at it on an oscilloscope. After all you looked at plenty of sine waves graphed out in 9 th grade algebra didn't you? I sure did. Did you think all of that algebra and geometry crap was just abstract stuff and had no meaning in the real world? Well it did. And if you will recall back to some of the equations you solved back when you were just a pimply faced kid, were actual electronic formulas that you would later recall.
Bet you didn't pay any attention did you?. Bet you were too busy looking up the girls dresses weren't you? Having knowledge and understanding of the practical real world can go a long darn way in repairing your tractor. When I see grown men come on here and don't have the slightest inkling of ohms law or how a breaker box is broken out into the two phases of electrical delivery, it makes my *** hurt to think how poor our education system is. You see it as grown men peeing up a wall, I see it as enrichment of knowledge that they already should have had.
I see men on here every day, that cannot understand the concept of a high resistance joint on a copper cable can cause a voltage on that cable to be different than the voltage on the other end. Yes Mr. Ohm is an old dead white guy, but he set down to paper a law a long time ago that we still have to live with. And you looked at that law in its various forms in 9th grade algebra a lot of times. Of course they didn't tell you what it was, but it was there and how to use it. Shame on them.
So when someone tries to educate your stupid *** and if you don't understand it, please take the time to engage them in a conversation and say "I don't understand that, could you please enlighten me a little more or put it into words I CAN understand" instead of thinking we are trying to "baffle you with bull****" Some of the folks here on TBN are pretty darn smart accomplished guys. Some are a whole lot smarter than I. I have learned many things here over the few years I have been here, and I have helped many guys get their tractor started, or something figured out. Sometimes it takes all of us to get their tractor started or something else figured out, with many of us adding small pieces to the puzzle. That is the beauty of this place. So don't go knocking it when some one tries to enlighten you. You are not only showing your ignorance but you are also showing a disdain for knowledge and learning. And gaining knowledge is something we all should be doing from the day we are born to the day we shall die.
So in the future, when you don't understand some concept, then by all means hold up your hand and say so. Some of us will actually try to help you understand that thing. You may be surprised what you can learn if you try.