This is precisely why Canada's new motto should be "From sea to sea to sky to border to sea". More inclusive and less hydrocentric and etherphobic.

Just for y'all here at The Friends of Small Dead Animals, I have typed in the following from page F-176 of the 2,500 page, 12 pound, Chemical Rubber Company's Handbook of Chemistry and Physics:

--------------------------------
"Lightening, during its life time of up to a second, undergoes numerous variations, and all its parameters change by orders of magnitude. Also, there are many different forms of lightening.

"Even disregarding particular forms such as ball lightening, we find at least four classification criteria, which, taken together, give a great number of differences: intercloud, intracloud, and cloud-to-ground discharges and combinations of those; short hight-current and long low-current flashes, lightnings beginning in the clouds and moving towards ground, and lightening's moving upwards, lightening's lowering positive charges and lightening's lowering negative charges, and those which do first the one and then the other.

"The usual cloud to ground lightening begins with a stepped ladder of low luminosity, probably a meter or so in diameter, followed by a return stroke with a diameter in the order of centimeters, with temperatures of about 30,000 degrees Kelvin, and pressures up to a 1,000,000 Newtons per square meter. After this, a dart leader may again move downwards, causing a second return stroke. This may repeat several times (multiple stroke flash).

"Typical voltage drop in ground or other conductors is in the neighbourhood of 10,000 volts per meter (dangerous!). Intra-cloud lightnings have been observed with up to 100,000 meter lengths. Energy delivered in a stroke is about 100,000 Joules per meter.

"There are probably about 100 lightnings occurring on Earth at any time. Lightening frequency over oceans is only about 1/10 of that over continents. Diurnal variations on continents show maximums in later afternoon and early evening, and over oceans late evening until after midnight.

"Long lasting, low current (thousands of Amperes) flashes are more dangerous to man and more damaging to objects than short high-current flashes."
--------------------------------

So, for those of you keeping score at home, we're talking temperatures of up to 54,000 degrees Farenheight, pressures up to 145 pounds per square inch, and up to 13 million horsepower per stroke (over the length of the stroke). I thought you might enjoy that ;-)

I want my mommy....*shiver*

I want my mommy.....*shiver*

Vit...

Ya forgot to end with Paul Harvey's "now you know the rest of the story..."

By the way, in case any of you think that 145 pounds per square inch is something to sneeze at, that pressure is over a surface area of something like a cylinder up to 100,000 meters long, by, say, 10 centimeters in radius. So, the surface area, A = 2 × π × r × L, is about 628 million cm² or 97 million in², giving a total, per single stroke of lightening, of 14 billion pounds of force, overall. And 10,000 volts / meter × 100,000 meters is 1 billion volts, end to end. To go with your 13 million horsepower.

Believe it or not, I do have a point here, other than fun with physics. Consider morning rush-hour traffic in North America. Say that, a some point, there are 100 million vehicles on the road, and they are running at an average of 50 horsepower, that is, on average, cruising (well, I'm guessing, but it's somewhere between 1 and 100 horsepower on average, so that's close enough for first approximation). So, that's 500 million total horsepower.

Now, the CRC said 100 lightnings at any time, so at 13 million horsepower each, that would be 1.3 billion horsepower. In other words, the total power used over any second of the morning commute is something like 38 % of the total power of the earth's lightening discharges in that second. So, say, the total North American power consumption at peak load is something like the total power output of the whole earth's 100 lightening strokes per second. And those strokes are running 54,000 degrees Farenheight each.

So, my point is, when people run around debating how to optimize man's use of resources, and arguing about the machines we are trying to make to do so, some of which run at extreemly high pressures, temperatures, voltages, and currents, without understanding these basic forms of reasoning, their opinions tend to be worth less than a pinch of salt. If we want to replace the majestic energy density of hydrocarbons with something else, we've got a lot of replacing to do. And I'm sure, over the centuries, we will. I'm a hopeless optimist.

For those of you who are interested, tinyurl.com/px258 has an excellent image of the artificial lightening created during the operation of the gymnasium sized Z machine, which has achieved 1.6 million degrees Celsius. For billionths of a second, it has produced an output X-ray power of about 290 trillion watts, about 80 times the entire world's output of electricity. Like I've said, we're workin' on it.

(And if there isn't at least one mistake in my lazy summer Friday afternoon analysis above, I'll be a monkey's uncle ;-)

The freaks from GREENPEACE will blame this on GLOBAL WARMING the same way AL GORE and the eco-eacky wads try to blame the hurricanes on global warming becuase their fanatics

In my line of work,(helicopter maintenance) we call those lightning storms 'money-clouds'.

Many folks think forest fires are all bad, but in the interest of 'enlightening' everybody(pun intended), forest fires are a naturally occuring event, part of the renewal of the forest, and on a strictly economic level, they boost the local economy of any small town during the duration of the fire that may be near by.

The Saskatchewan Government injects hundreds of thousands of dollars into small communities and it's inhabitants' pockets everytime there is a fire, or even threat of fire, ie: warm dry weather mixed with thunder showers. If an actual fire occurs, then even more money is pumped into the local economy. I'm currently in La Ronge, helping battle the fires and helping move the crews to and from the fires. My company gets paid, the fire-fighters get paid, the motels, grocery stores, hardware stores, fuel suppliers, ad nausium all get some much-needed revenue from the Provincial government. That money is already budgeted for fire suppresion, and the benefactors are the locals that make the fire-fighting machine operate. In short, its like a huge windfall for everybody, and its not in the form of a tax-credit, or other BS, it's a direct infusion of capital to the citizens of the area.

Hence the term 'money-clouds'

I'm not advocating arson, or negligence by persons hoping to gain financially by the fires, but the natural fires caused by lightening. Fires are always going to happen, so instead of cursing them, welcome them as natures way of re-birth, but with benefits.

Hey Vit, can I have some of that stuff you're on?

;-)

Vitruvius:

I remember reading about that Z machine and there was some talk of anomolous over-unity energy spiking. More power out than expected from energy in.

Any thoughts?

Found it (or something like it).

www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/09/hot_plasma/

Quote from article:
Haines theorised that "the rapid conversion of magnetic energy to a very high ion plasma temperature was achieved by unexpected instabilities at the point of ordinary stagnation"

The edge of science is always were the fun is, IMO.

Steve

nicola tesla was way waaaay ahead of his time. some of his stuff was and is just toooo far out to get any attention. fortunately the stuff that did get attention like the distinct advantages of alternating current did get attention.

in later years he worked with high voltage electricity. it would have been interesting to see where that led if it had been followed up.

anybody find it curious voltage travels at the speed of light?

Voltage doesn't travel.

uh WOAAAh there vitrius, if voltage doesnt travel, howcum a generator switched on in, oh, say bruce peninsula, results in a surge of power seconds later throughout all the power distribution lines connected? hmmm? how fast are the elecrons in the wire travelling as opposed to the voltage front 'surging' down the line; induced at the speed of light from one electron to the other???

if voltage dont travel, howcum you can have voltage the entire length of a conductor instantaneously but no current if the circuit remains open ???

jeez st vitus for a while I thought you knew what you were talkin about, not now.

hint: 'voltage' is kinda like 'sound' travelling thru the air. a sine wave and all that.

the air itself isnt moving at 1000 + km/sec, just the sound propagating through it, and likewise the electrons in the conductor do not whip the entire length of 1000 km power line in less than a second, just the voltage which 'pushes' some electron out of the wire at the end into the device it is powering. but those electrons most assuredly did NOT start at the generator and a split second later work their way into a lite bulb or radio at the other end.

V-O-L-T-A-G-E travels at the speed of light, current doesnt.

hint: dat's why when you occilate fast enough, you get radio waves pouring out the end, and they too carry on, traveling at the speed of light.

the connection between voltage and radio waves is clearly beyond your scope.

as is an explanation of how induction works in a transformer. and Im not talking about the voltage difference dependant on the proportion of primary vs secondary coils, whut Im talking about is HOWCUM induction happens and ESPECIALLY why you wind up with a voltage difference. has to do a great deal with exactly what the essence of 'voltage' is.

hint: quantum theory

another analogy, current vs voltage.

an experiment:

we set up a pvc pipe same diameter of a billiard ball, and fill the tube to full so that the billiard balls all touch.

the ends of the pipe are open, exposing the billiard balls at each end. the billiard balls represent electrons in a conductor.

we 'induce' a 'voltage' at one end of the 'conductor' ie pipe by smacking real fast with a ball pein hammer.

the billiard ball ie 'electron' at the other end pops out virtually instantaneously.

the microscopically small collisions between the balls is like voltage travelling the length of the 'conductor' ie pipe. rest assured the ball that pops out the other end is NOT the same one you smacked. in fact just about ALL the balls ie 'electrons' have hardly moved at all.

same as wit' da real t'ing.

HUGE difference between current and voltage.

voltage TRAVELS at the speed of light dear reader.

I win !!!

LOL !!!

Voltage is a potential differential analogous to pressure. Current is a kinetic flow analogous to volume. Current, or volume, flow. Potential differences do not flow, they just sit there and either remain the same or change. Compare, for example, a 1 in² inch hose driven at 1000 psi gauge with a 1000 in² hose at 1 psi gauge. As the hose flows, it's not the pounds per in² that flow, its the cubic inches of stuff that flow.

Electrons (the sub-atomic particles orbiting nucleii in quantum clouds), on the other hand do flow, but quite slowly actually. (I was somewhat surprised by that when we studied this in one of the first-year courses in my undergraduate electrical engineering degree, but having to deal with reactive force, not simply resistive force, was even more surprising ;-)

Electric energy does travel at the speed of light (energy, that is, measured in Joules, not Volts, Amperes, or electrons). The size of the flow is called Power, and is measured in Watts, or Joules per second.

Except, of course, that when we say speed of light, we mean the speed of light in a vacuum. And current doesn't flow in a vacuum, it requires a conductor, which has a dialectric constant, which changes the speed at which the current flows is the conductor just as glass changes the speed of light flowing through it.

Voltage doesn't travel. Billiard balls don't enter into it.

Which only goes to show, a little knowledge is a very dangerous thing. Fortunately for us, people who work on the correct functioning of Bruce, for example, who happen to include me, have more than a little knowledge. So we're much less dangerous ;-)

(Obligatory disclaimer: I'm not working now, I've had a few beer, and there may be errors in the above. If I was working, I'd have the big books out, and I'd be double-checking everything, and then I'd run it past peer review. But I'm not, and I'm not in the mood to put more effort than this into it just to make a point.)

aaaand do tell vitus, whut makes the joules do their thing in the absence of voltage?

the emf asserts itself regardless of whether there is energy converted or not. you DO NOT have actually utilize the electric energy, ie the joules, for the voltage to be present. it is present throughout the conductor, propagated at the speed of light, the moment the source of the voltage contacts it any point.

the rest of your point is gobbldiegook semantics and bafflegab.

voltage travels.

a non electrified conductor has no voltage differential measured to the surroundings.

a voltage is applied anywhere in the conductor.

the voltage now exists throughout the conductor at all points, at a rate relative to that point's distance from the point of contact of the source of the voltage. it will be a brief time lapse seeing as the voltage TRAVELS AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT.

voltage travels at the speed of light through the conductor regardless of whether the conductor is in a vacuum.

hint: MOST of the matter constituting the conductor is empty space, ie a VACUUM. 'splain dat sirrah !!!

also you have not touched on how induction works. what is the process??? how can voltage now exist in a conductor NOT CONNECTED to the one having the source of voltage ??? how dat 'appen sirrah ???

'tis magnetism ahar ya swab.

uhuh, and whut t'is is 'bout magnetism that it somehow transfers the electrical energy across the gap so faithfully??? note, despite some considerable voltages even in common items, we dont get zapped by all that 'lectricity somehow hopping 'cross the gap. proof? grab a transformer which has 1,000 volts across the secondary (no no no, I dont mean grab the terminals of the secondary, just the uncharged body of the transformer. the place where all this induction is taking place). so how does that happen ???

hint: quantum mechanics. 'splains not only induction but change in voltage. how ?

the billiard balls is an analogy, which most assuredly has a place in building up the understanding and creating concepts and models in the mind of the reader having to deal with a certain abstract quality surrounding discussions of electric flow.

The electrodynamics versus fluid dynamics analogies do have value in understanding concepts (which is why I used them). The billiard-ball analogy does not, because it is majestically wrong, exactly because of quantum electrodynamics.

The problem, Robert, with your attempt to apply the fluid dynamics analogy, is that you've got voltage and current exactly backwards in the analogy. That's why I responded to your comment about voltage travelling, since it doesn't.

You have been hanging around here long enough to know by now that you should have probably said, "Hey, Vitruvius, I thought voltage travelled and current was static?". And I would have said something nice like: "Hey, Robert, I used to get those two mixed up too ;-)", and provided a nice explanation for you.

But you didn't. Why? Because, Robert, you don't come here to have a conversation, you come here to intellectually masturbate. And you're not very good at it either. But if that's what turns your crank, honey, hey, you win: a game of one.

Languishing Obstreperous Loquacity: that's you, Robert. No Coulombs about it.

Ah Vitruvius, how elegantly you put it (as usual) compared to the trollish nonsensical untrained ignorant paranoid provocative dull droning pointless endless addled wankings of young Robert here.

"LOL", indeed. "Voltage travels"; "what makes the joules do their thing".

Asstard. Put down the bong, Robert. Get off the dole, put down the bong, pick up a book, and STFU.

On the subject of Greenpeace, my wife has a friend whose husband is a long-time member. I mean, zipping-round-in-Zodiacs serious.

What he knows about nature could be stuffed up an ant's ass. I mean, not even the most basic stuff. These people worry me. They have a lot of influence on the hard of thinking folks like Robert.

Let's cut to the chase: Robert is a damned troll whose only purpose here (and in life generally I'll wager) is to disrupt this blog. He is a classic canonical no-life antisocial fuckup troll; here are the symptoms he manifests so perfectly:

- calls Vitruvius, an obviously deserving, witty, hugely educated member of this board a troll, to throw people off the scent

- false credentials to lend credibility. Or MAYBE he has a BA,in something like Underwater Basket-Weaving perhaps

- horse-cock disinformation invented on the spot - not to refute anyone's argument since he is so transparently full of it - but to hook the other people here and keep them responding.

You might ask, "Well, why would anyone do that? Why would anyone so willingly piss their life away in such a cavalier manner?

Hate to be the bearer of bad news folks, but - wait for it - THERE ARE CRAZY PEOPLE OUT HERE ON THE NET. The anonymity provided by blogs, forums, Usenet, etc. have encouraged the kind of pathetic bastards who would normally waste their lives away in welfare hotels to, how to put it - make their grand appearance on life's stage. Remember what Orwell had the bad guy say in "1984": the way you know you have power over people is by making them suffer. Robert knows he has power over you when you get upset - justifiably, it's true - over the ad hominem attacks and ludicrous rants he posts here. I leave you with the central axiom and lesson of Usenet: don't feed the troll.

Unless of course you're enoying watching them make idiots of themselves. At least you know he isn't PHYSICALLY aasaulting anyone at the moment he's typing his responses.

Well, I'm not sure I'd go that far, Mike. Sometimes it's more a matter of an owl toying with a mouse while entertaining, and possibly on occasion even educating, the folks on the patio. Notice that the owl does not get angry.

Anyway, (1) I've got a meeting tomorrow morning on Canadian Standards Association accreditation for nuclear engineering software (seriously), which will be a win for all of us, if I get a good night's sleep, and (2) we're really pushing the margins here on Kate's published commenting policy for Small Dead Animals, so I'll just leave it at that.

Y'all take care now, y'hear. Good night.

still they fall for it even when it is succinctly and unequivocally spelt out. even the entire japanese nation knows this: you make it personal, its a clear and undeniable sign you have bankrupted yourself of logic. sling mud when there is no other avenue.

note one and all, the st vitus gang still refuse to answer the question regarding how in all creation induction works. something so common and reliable, but noooo, gotta speak of masturbation instead to throw you off the scent.

adding lies along the way: I made no mention of st vitus assuming the role of troll in this thread contrary to mike a;

made no reference to static current (its a contradiction, unless you speak of those imperceptibly incalculably tiny eddies within an electronic lattice) (whut dat ???) as included by mr st vitus.

yo, vit: try this after your csa meeting:

unscrew a 1,000 volt panel cover somewhere and disconnect the feed.

grab the bus bar somwheres. no problem cause there aint no voltage.

now get a buddy to reconnect the line feed wit' youse still hanging on to the bus bar.

how long did it take for the voltage to TRAVEL, ie, manifest itself, from the connect point, down the bus bar, up your arm and into your quicker-than-the-speed-of-light-making-it-personal addled little brain. which now also has 1,000 volts potential ??? egad youve done it already. I saw that in an old b/w movie. youre boris karloff's evil twin. aka frankenstein 2006.

so, I offer you a chance at redemption vitus and mike: tell we woebegotten basket weavers how induction works. the real deal, the full tilt complete story how a coil carrying a sufficiently high (doesnt have to be very high) frequency alternating current sets our friendly and versatile electrons in the secondary coil to going pitter patter. at the same frequency no less. with voltage proportionate to the ratio of number of coils and amperage inversely so. how *does* it work ???

how, smartass ??? give up already ??? ok, heres an alternative skill testing question: what property is it that strongly differentiates conductors from insulators. or 'conductors' from 'insulators' if you prefer, since many 'insulators' are actually capable of some conduction and even the best conductors have a faint measure of the resistance that marks insulators. note however we dont use tin foil to insulate electric cables. besides, mikey and vitus seem to have it all stockpiled away for their tin foil hats.

LOL !!!

show us your REAL understanding and not some bafflegab you memorized out of a textbook. have either of you ever had an original thought ??? even the make-it-personal stuff has been done already.

see, I CAN make it personal also but have thus far refrained except where the likes of mr vitus *repeatedly* do so first.

here's one for anyone to answer:

how do photons accelerate to the speed of light instantaneously, and equally instantaneously stop accelerating ,as far as we can tell, within a distance less than the inner reaches of an atom ??

how do they do it ?? or 'whatever' you fancy light to be, how does it instantaneously reach C and equally instantaneously STAY at that velocity ??

what's goin on there?

hint: plank's time 1.0 E -43 ie 1 over 10 to the 43rd power seconds.

and if vitus apologizes and repents and mikey retracts all his personal insults I will give you all the answer.

but naturally that aint gonna happen because those two are more intent on heaping insult to boost their fragile masculinity than they are at acquiring understanding REGARDLESS of the source.

LOL !!!

Robert J BA (poli sci) BSc (comp sci)

I don't normally respond to people who don't even have the common good grace to spell my name correctly, and who make wild claims like the "connection between voltage and radio waves is clearly beyond your scope" without any evidence thereto, but I have tried to be neighbourly about it. Well, I won't bother any more, other than to note that rather than have everyone off by a factor of 85%, Planck's time is 5.39121 × 10⁻⁴⁴ seconds.