Re: Trying to understand AC by analogy to water waves.
- From: unsettled <unsettled@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2006 04:32:05 -0600
Colin wrote:
V. Since the AC potential is just as often below ground as above, is
the average actually zero? Doesn't seem like it since connecting an AC
wire directly to ground produces a huge current.
The current, displaced in time from the voltage, varies just
as the voltage does. Sometimes it is high, sometimes it is
zero. However it averages.
When you look at the voltage represented as a curve, the
average voltage available is represented by the area under
the curve, it is not zero.
I would think AC
moving from power plant through wires to ground to be analogous to a
pond connected by a cannal to an enormous lake both at sea level where
neither have significant natural waves. The enormous lake is ground
and the pond supplies water for the power plant. If there's no barrier
in the cannal, waves generated in the pond shouldn't produce a current
in the cannal, just waves propagating through the cannal to the lake.
If there's a barrier, large waves in the cannal could throw water over
the barrier producing a current in the cannal. Why would there then be
a huge flow of electric current when connecting the power plant to
ground when there's no barrier and the net voltage is zero with an AC
wave flowing through the wire?
Drop the analogy. And the "net voltage" isn't zero.
Shift over to the fields model I pointed you to.
.
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