Why electricity flows

Originally posted by timmhaines
reply to post by AthlonSavage

 

So can you make the Tesla antenna work 100% of the time? This is a problem I cannot overcome, and really want to power the house, and maybe a car.

You need $5 to build this demonstrator version:

Wireless Electricity ( for under $5 )

It works fine, and of course you could scale it up to power a house, but why would you want to? It would cost you more than you're paying now to operate it.

There are commercial wireless power transmission technologies that are even more efficient than this demonstrator, but even the most efficient commercial wireless power transmission tech is still nowhere near as efficient as transmission lines. Apparently Tesla thought he might be able to demonstrate something more efficient with Wardenclyffe, but he never did, and I'm doubtful that he or anyone else will ever do that. The math doesn't allow it as far as I can tell, and so far nobody has shown me any better math, or any demonstration, that proves otherwise.

Some college students built this larger demonstrator, and the video compares it to Tesla wireless tech and says it can certainly be scaled up. The uploader even discusses frequency considerations in the comments. So I don't know why everybody else can build it, but you can't?

Wireless power transmission

reply to post by AthlonSavage


I have studied electronics and the types of circuits and house wiring. Although I am a bit rusty remembering all the details of circuit components and more in depth stuff such as inductance, capacitance, Impedance, rectification, coils etc. I would seriously need a refresher through all my literature. Even though the basics remain the same electronic technology is ever changing. It's a fun subject and field to learn and really opens your eyes on the nature of electricity. How it all works and how we humans can harness that power. The more I went down the path of computer IT, electronics kinda got put on the back burner. Although I highly recommend people to study the basics of electronics first before going into those other fields because it will help you out believe me. Even the simple things helps. I have ran into system engineers that couldn't solder or crimp a patch cord to save their life.

When you started talking about OHM's law I had to stop and think a moment as I used E as the voltage variable, but I gotcha I think I can remember now... E=IxR... R=E/I...I=E/R. Uh lets see for power P =ExI...P=I2R...P=E2/R. Story for OHM's law is that if you know 2 of the variables in the circuit you can work it out to get the third unknown. Oh boy you might have peaked my interest again, I can't believe I remembered that after all these years.

reply to post by AthlonSavage


So, voltage is the potential for an aether vortex to form. Resistance is the strength of the barrier between 3D and 4D space. Current is the amount of flow of protons (condensed aether globules) through the vortex. When the proton enters the vortex, it is re-"liquefied", releasing energy and a photon (transverse wave through the aether.) The other end of the vortex, or electron sink, is the "electron" which is now re-condensed aether with opposite spin as the proton it once was, keeping the aether electrically neutral. Tesla style.

EDIT: lol I am halfway through a BS in electronics engineering, so don't know as much as you, but I am very interested in understanding electricity as Tesla did. He never bought into relativity. If you read his works you will notice that after opinions moved toward relativity, he stopped calling it aether, and started calling it "the space". Not "space", but "THE space"- his way of saying the aether.


I personally will go with the physics of the guy who was able to do things that they are still unable to replicate today, rather than the physics of those who cannot reproduce the results.

reply to post by intrptr


Electrons are collected at the negative (electrons = negative charge) terminal of the battery, and protons at the positive. The electrons want to go toward the protons so neutrality will be achieved. They cannot go through the battery though, because of the physical properties of it. So the only way for them to get to the protons is by going through the circuit around and back into the positive terminal. We are learning conventional current, where the flow of current is thought of as being out of the positive terminal. Electron flow version is the opposite- the current is said to flow the same direction as the electrons, out of the negative terminal. In reality it doesn't matter which way you think of the current flowing (and in fact the holes go the opposite direction as the electrons so charge is carried both directions)- the math works both ways, just change the sign. In reality, electricity travels darn near the speed of light, so when the circuit is closed, for all practical purposes, the current is instantaneously present in every part of the circuit. Is this right OP?

reply to post by AthlonSavage


A haiku I wrote a few months ago about electricity:

The Sun and the Moon
Volts and amps, respectively:
The blackout of night

reply to post by PhoenixOD


Yes that's a good example. As the story goes the the atom nucleus is positive charged and the electrons that orbit the nucleus are negative charged. The electrons closest to the center are more locked into place and are harder to move. The outer most electrons move more freely and can transfer from one nucleus to the other. In a DC circuit for example by connecting a battery that is a basically a storage of electrons. The electron current will start to flow in the wire as the negative electron orbiting the positive charged atom nucleus will start to flow to the next atom down the line and out the wire. It pulls towards the positive charged side of the battery and the negative side of the battery the current flow back out to the circuit.

reply to post by AthlonSavage

reply to post by steadilyscreaming

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Thanks for the replies and explanations.

reply to post by Arbitrageur

Apparently Tesla thought he might be able to demonstrate something more efficient with Wardenclyffe, but he never did, and I'm doubtful that he or anyone else will ever do that. The math doesn't allow it as far as I can tell, and so far nobody has shown me any better math, or any demonstration, that proves otherwise.

That is one of the "conspiracy theory" questions. Tesla invented a ton of stuff we all use today. His unfinished Transmission Tower was dismantled after he ran out of funds. He was never able to complete it. Since Tesla was so right about so many other things involving use of electricity, why did he undertake such a venture without first realizing its potential?

Was it just a bigger version of the Tesla coil? Why would he waste so much energy on it then?

WiFi power would have it's pluses having recharge stations. You drive over this field and your car starts to charge. Like charging mats only on larger scale. Then you have instances where you would need power to a device without any connection to it from outside source. Being completely isolated in hostile places like a robot in a lab somewhere working with a deadly virus. The less holes you have in walls the less likely a seal will be broken. With this you could have one coil on one side of the wall and the coil on the other. The caveat to having wifi power everywhere though is efficiency and cost in materials to build coil towers on a mass scale. Building massive towers next to each other and only getting a few feet of wifi power is not practical. You might as well just run the one wire you need lol. The other caveat question would be is it safe? Would have to think about the frequencies they generate and also safety for high power. What is going to protect you from high voltage and electrical shorts and burnouts? Another thing to think about redundancy. One system goes down they all go down.

I just wanna know why I can't bill the Power Company back for the electrons I send back to it ??? Huh ? Huh ? are their electrons more important than mine ?

cheers will look forward to the next session

Originally posted by buddhasystem

Originally posted by pheonix358

Originally posted by Arbitrageur

Originally posted by AthlonSavage
I should of used example of a Rheostat which is a device with a dimmer control which varies electrical resistance to vary intensity of light source. I wil check Iron electrical circuits out later to confirm circuit layout (havent got time now).

Or maybe you should read my post and the link to dimmers I provided, which I think covers the dimmer topic more accurately than your link. The modern dimmers are typically pulsed; rheostats were used in old dimmers however, and were inefficient.

edit on 7-11-2012 by Arbitrageur because: clarification

Yes, I agree, to understand modern dimmers one needs to consider the fourth dimension. A dimmer works by applying the same power levels but the levels are restricted in the time domain.

As has been posted before, but ignored, This analogy utterly fails to describe how a transformer functions.

There is always a grave risk if your fundamental understanding is solely based on analogies. If you never rise above the simplistic and limited analogies you will never truly understand.

I tend to agree.

Moreover, when we look at history, we observe that quite a few analogies were tried to explain things, before the age of the scientific method. Like "phlogiston", five elements (or four, or six), astrology coupled with alchemy etc.

It just doesn't work well.

What beats me is this: the electricity is a fairly simple concept that a child has a fair chance of understanding. Why settle for water cisterns?

Sorry buddhasystem and pheonix358,

I think you both are missing the point of(idea behind) an analogy and model. Within its limits the incompressible fluid with viscous friction is a valid analogy and model for electric current. It allows to introduce such abstract things like current, potential, resistance and also power and work. It also hints at an underlying symmetry, conservation of mass/charge.

Of course it won't be able to encompass all effects related to electricity. But it isn't meant to!

And after all it can also be used to demonstrate how models have their limits and the importance of understanding them. Which is imho an important part of scientific and engineering work.

But I guess you belong to the guys who will bitch at aeronautical engineers for using the incompressible fluid model for air because it is "obviously wrong".

I will have to agree with moebius here. The analogy is just that, an analogy and isn't meant to explain the more complex nature of electricity, its properties and behaviors. Comparing the basics of how a circuit works, water (or the flow of it) works perfectly. It isn't meant to be an in depth analysis of electronics, electromagnetic, or any variant thereof.

Typically this analogy is utilized in basic electronics theory because we can relate to it. The flow of water is tangible and is far easier to understand than the flow of electrons. The analogy, as I was taught was to explain the basics of Ohm's Law; nothing more, nothing less.

reply to post by Druid42


At the risk of using one analogy to explain another, the best analogy for describing the action of a transformer would have to be the gearbox, an electrical gearbox that is. It transfers the power input to the output (minus some operating losses like hysteresis, iron and copper losses) but allows virtually unlimited range of conversion of the current/voltage balance in the process.

Analogies are good as an aid to introductory understanding of basic principles but not much more than that.

Originally posted by Pilgrum
reply to post by Druid42

 

At the risk of using one analogy to explain another, the best analogy for describing the action of a transformer would have to be the gearbox, an electrical gearbox that is. It transfers the power input to the output (minus some operating losses like hysteresis, iron and copper losses) but allows virtually unlimited range of conversion of the current/voltage balance in the process.

Analogies are good as an aid to introductory understanding of basic principles but not much more than that.

I think that is a good way to put it Pilgrum. Transforms are designed to "step-up" or "step-down" voltage and inversely, current; basically put.

electricity follows the path of least resistance, was one of the first things i was taught as a industrial repair service technician.
the op did a great job explaining the way electricity flows,
but the very first book i was ever given for study was,
Basic Electricity from miller eletric / G.K. Willecke

it's only one hundred pages, and simple enough to read.
it stayed in my tool box for 25 years, and i referred to it many time over the years.
check out the mice in chapter 3.

Originally posted by Druid42
reply to post by buddhasystem

 

to describe how a transformer functions.

Care to explain that one? I'm curious to see if you can.

At least I can try. You see, the electromagnetic phenomena have been discovered to obey Maxwell's equations. That's their property. And no amount of water cisterns will be good enough to describe that.

Originally posted by Pilgrum
reply to post by Druid42

 

At the risk of using one analogy to explain another, the best analogy for describing the action of a transformer would have to be the gearbox, an electrical gearbox that is. It transfers the power input to the output (minus some operating losses like hysteresis, iron and copper losses) but allows virtually unlimited range of conversion of the current/voltage balance in the process.

Analogies are good as an aid to introductory understanding of basic principles but not much more than that.

It' a great explanation as far as power transfer and power loss goes, but (a) it's decoupled from the "water model", and thus makes the whole picture even more fragmented (b) the actual MECHANISM of the power transfer is pretty much ignored, and that is the crux of the transformer principle of operation.

So yes, I agree with your last statement in that post. And again, I see no reason to take shortcuts. Simple lab kits are available and accessible to children of a pretty young age, as I know from experience.

reply to post by buddhasystem


I find your usage of the word mechanism to be somewhat misleading. Isn't it more of a process?
No one here has described transformer operation yet, but rather clung to analogical remarks. Please, can we get an actual description?

Originally posted by Druid42
reply to post by buddhasystem

 

I find your usage of the word mechanism to be somewhat misleading. Isn't it more of a process?

Depends on how you look at it. The equations, when applied to the apparatus, describe what's happening there. You may call it a process if you like.

No one here has described transformer operation yet, but rather clung to analogical remarks.

Oh come on...

Wiki

A varying current in the primary winding creates a varying magnetic flux in the transformer's core and thus a varying magnetic field through the secondary winding. This varying magnetic field induces a varying electromotive force (EMF), or "voltage", in the secondary winding.

It's not an analogy, it's directly related to the Maxwell equations.