Thanks John. I think I may have fundamental misunderstanding. Electric energy flows from the hot side, through the load, and back to the transformer through the neutra/white wire. So, you can measure current on the neutral side as well. Is this correct? Let's use the following diagram which represents the transformer in my back yard: TRANSFORMER
--------------) | | | |----------| | | |to ground stake At bottom of pole
If we were to susspend the two 110VAC lines in mid air, does the neutral wire have any potential relative to ground? or is it equal to ground since it is grounded? If we remove the ground from the neutral wire at the transformer pole, does the neutral wire then have the ability to carry a load? If you need, dumb down the explanation, I apparently have trouble grasping something. Tell me which wires would shock me if I grabbed them standing barefoot in a puddle of salt water in my back yard. :) Does disconnecting the ground stake at the power pole change any of this? Thanks. I promise, I'm gonna get this. I appreciate everyone hanging in there to help me through this. Brian
Thats correct...especially for DC current 'flow' is a good term...but you have Alternating current..there is no actual flow... just a wiggling back and forth of the same electrons in the wire, at 60 cycles a second... not actual flow... jerking back and forth with great vigor. Thats AC, or alternating current. DC drives an actual flow of electrons to where ever you run wire, that goes though you load, light or whatever and actually flows the remaining electrons to ground.
This might seem like a hair split...but understand the differences keeps your head straight later on...and you progress to higher and higher levels of understanding.
Given that we dont even know what an electron is made of at all...we have no faintest clue at basic levels...its good to keep somewhat of an open mind on the issue.
Thanks Phill. From what I read around the net, I got the same thing with AC that you described, that the electrons don't flow. But what about the EMF? Does that pulse back and forth too? I know it travels in a sine wave. I think this is my last question for now. :)
Sort of. A load connected to an outlet will have an equal current on the hot and neutral wires. However, the neutral going back to the transformer may carry no current at all, if the loads between the two hot sides and the neutral are exactly balanced- the two opposite neutral currents cancel at the connection point at the service entrance. That's why the neutral wire doesn't need to be twice as big as the other two. Its maximum current is the maximum load in either of the other two wires. Once one side is loaded maximally, any loading of the other side removes current from the neutral.
It's not exactly correct to say that electric energy "flows from the hot side..." and so on. There is a potential difference (alternating) between two wires, that causes them to carry a current. The whole system works. Then, for safety reasons, we find it convenient to connect one of the two wires to earth ground, and we call it neutral. Nothing has changed in the circuit or its currents by doing so, except that it is prevented from being at unpredictable voltages with respect to earth.
Let's use the following diagram
I really don't know what grounding arrangements are made at the pole.
Yes, that's the purpose of grounding it.
The neutral wire, after it leaves the house, carries the imbalance in currents between the two transformer segments. Whether that neutral wire is connected to ground or not doesn't affect its current-carrying capacity. What the grounding does affect is whether the whole system has a fixed potential relative to earth ground or not.
Yes. If you grabbed either of the hot wires, you would fry. If you grabbed the neutral wire, you would probably be ok. If the neutral were disconnected from ground, then touching any of them might zap you, depending on capacitive or other connection to earth ground anywhere in the transformer, or the loads at the house, or the house next door.
Thanks again John. Because of my misconception about neutral carrying a current, I never thought about cancelling out of current on the neutral wire.
Ok, I've always heard the phrase, "It's not the voltage that kills, it's the current." Is there truth to that?
When I started reading about all this stuff recently, I read that in AC systems, there is no electron flow. The enegry being "generated" by the generators at the power company was electromagnetic energy, which travels in sine waves. But in the case of AC, the waves alternate back and forth. So there's no flow of charge, no flow of current, no flow of anything, it all alternates. I think I grasp the light bulb concept where the wire gets so thin and so resistant, heat is generated in the filament. Did I get bad info along the way somewhere? Does anyone have a suggestion for a good site which explains these key concepts? I mean, do we basically pay the power comany to pump the EMF back and forth going nowhere? Seems odd. The more I try to analyze this, the deeper I dig my hole. 2 days ago, this elementary concept seemed to make sense. Would the whole electric system shut down if we pulled the neutral wires out of the generators at the power company? I'm sure ya'll are tired of seeing me go backward in my search for some truth here. If ya'll have some good internet references, that would be great. I checked out a good bit of info over at
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but a lot of it is repetitive, and I lose track of what parts I've read already. Thanks to all who are helping me. Brian
It sort of doesn't matter whether there is net electron flow. The movement of the electrons is distinct from the movement of energy. Imagine the piston in a gasoline engine. It only goes back and forth, it doesn't get anywhere... but it still transfers energy from the fire above to the crankshaft below. Electrons in a wire zip madly around at high speed in all directions, but that is heat, not electricity. When an electric field is applied to the wire, a very slow drift is superimposed on all that buzzing around, so that electrons, on average, move at about 1/2 inch per minute in the direction of the applied field. If the field is alternating, they move back and forth with no net movement. Still, the electric field and its energy are transmitted at close to light speed by that alternating movement.
What I've been trying to say is that calling a wire neutral doesn't change anything. If you pull out a current carrying wire, it won't carry current. The meter won't turn, you won't pay for it, and your light bulb won't light. What it's important to understand is that electric energy is transmitted through a circuit, which really means a circle. All the current that goes out has to come back, or it would pile up somewhere and make lightning bolts.
If I may suggest something, instead of poking around the internet, you might try going to a library and getting a basic book on electricity. The writer will probably cover all the bases to instill a basic understanding.
Brian, I have been meaning for days to refer you to the site below. Maybe it would help you get the groundwork started. It is very difficult to learn from a discussion that bounces around when you have not got the basics straight. News groups are great for simple points where a few people will give you a lead that you can understand and follow up.
there are no neutrals in the generators at the power company... I think you knew that fully...in case you did not however you need to study power distribution, pay attention to transformers and neutral taps...there are many types.
Even though current alternates in the grounded neutral there is still a net loss of electrons to ground when its just one of the *lines feeding a load with the other side to a grounded neutral.. the voltage pressure is reduced to zero in the neutral at the point of the ground, and that is founded by billions of electrons bleeding from the neutral side of the load to the ground, I am sure you are trolling now or you would not asked that question.
the next question in your series would be where do the electrons come from in a generator if they are being lost to ground though a neutral... especially as with DC current...
The question would be..where is the supply reservoir of electrons?
(the answer is imho that they are created, discussion below)
We know empirically, by evidence at least, that when a wire passes though a magnetic field an electro magnetic force is created in the wire.... if you touch both ends of the wire together you will get a flow of these 'electrons' (the number of which is called amperage.. the degree of force is called 'voltage'...
....none of that is unerringly 100% the hot poop because its language, trying to describe what we do *not understand at source levels,,,for instance just what the hell IS an electron? We have no clue...not the faintest... we have simply attached a name to a fairly well described phenomena.
So we are back to where to all the electrons come from if the generator windings have no grounded neutral?... and if this supposed electron pressure is bled to neutrals and ground at the point of use, especially with DC.
This takes us off of the deep end... those without a math or physics background will suffer confusion and headaches if the read further..some physics majors might find the following remarks interesting.
****
One can run a matrix of Einstein's E=mc2 equations, in its various algebraic manipulations from two points of view.. one from behind a mass as it is accelerated away, and another from the point of view of a black hole as the mass approaches the hole.
These two sets of equations will not balance unless you add what I called at the time, ( if found later that others used the term).. a graviton constant. In other words a pervasive field though which gravity operates...still not fathomed by anyone certainly not myself...
When I was at LLNL Dr Wolfgang Stroebel (age 28) from east Germany was setting up his Neutrino Mass experiment... the effort was to detect mass in the neutrino, later I learned that Col Wm Beardon ran the research they were looking for a field through which thought traveled...
I mumbled something about that to Wolfgang, he stopped mid chomp on his ham on rye and left the table..it was classified at the time.
Beardon wrote a book on this range of issues when he retired, vetted of course of any hot data and with some disinformation neatly spliced in... he did however provide the math and some diagrams on his neutrino field theory saying the neutrino field concept never proved out which is true.. It does seem however that over the horizon radar was developed from this research still classified.
Back to the point..where DO the electrons then come from...if they are being pumped into mothah earth at such a prodigious rate, especially with DC.
There IS only one source unless we saw the copper wire ablating away...and it doesn't. Its the magnetic field. the electrons are created by 'friction' with this field..
......and what is the magnetic field generated by? Conductive mass, such as the iron core of the earth moving through gravitational fields..I am asserting a single gravitational field.. and that its plastic to mass, and rigid to much finer, less massive influences, discussed later.
Movement through a gravitational field and set of forces that we do not remotely fathom yet are generating a magnetic fields in the moving objects, .. and we know that if you pass a wire though such a field you get a flow of something we chose to call electron flow in a wire...and that's useful.
On the crackpot issue: there is no shortage of crackpots who on this basis say there is free power in space that can be tapped... and that of course is bogus at least as these attempt to apply it.
Nothing happens without movement.... almost an oxymoron...in this case though a field that poses a resistance...and that takes energy...so the net result is no energy is ever lost or gained it just changes form.
So where then did the electrons come from? They were
*created.. that is fabricated... by movement... from interacting static fields...and return to the various static fields... they sure as hell did not come from Electrons R Us.
they are widely known to have come from the constantly morphing electro magnetic spectrum...but that's forgotten often as approach the macro range of why did Maude die in the electric chair so efficiently.
Apparent entropy, until you examine the black hole in great detail from a conservation of energy point of view.. there is considerable spin...and a whole lot comes out of that you see. currently ignored however. So its only entropy if you are a materialist who wish is Lincoln Town Car to remain shinny....
there are of course extended views... and no shortage of insane ones including most especially from a small army of our worlds greatest physicists...demonstrated fully as the 9 (all bogus) string theories were condensed to one workable one by one man with a more holistic view of life.
Myopia is common to the human condition.
Entropic losses: Is it linear no...its pervasively in many different diffuse vectors all along the way. Some of them with electrical power goes to a neutral to mother earth...other electrical energy changes form, and becomes radiant heat or photons as with an incandescent bulb, or is converted to physical torque as in a motor completely out of the electro magnetic spectrum..along with the crushed rock produced.., ...including biochemical reactions of a billion different sorts.
So that's where it goes... much of the previously ambient energy or potential energy or factors end up solidified in these biochemical reactions...forming increasingly a more and more massive universe ( that's still argued).
Where the energy goes is quite relevant to where it comes from.
Which takes us to the issue of what is powering this machine from the very front end, if its all ending up in black holes you might say,... ultra dense compacted mass?
"God" was the answer first given and long established...'from the creator.' All of that seemingly not fathomable by the mortal human.
but we could try.
We could say that 'intent' is the prime mover... Don Juan asserted that this intent was both contactable and ...unfathomable.. the intent of the ancient warriors he called it.
contactable to very interesting ends, but not fathomable...contact is through the generation of what Don Juan called 'unbending intent'' for example by throwing an unwitting apprentice into a raging flood torrent in the middle of the night and yelling after him "swim man swim'...then waiting weeks for him to return with the unbending intent to kill. (that's spun slightly in order to appeal to more obvious instincts).. but the nature of unbending intent can be felt at that level.
That works.
To conclude at the macro level: The electrical current that comes off of a generator is *manufactured by rubbing two 'sticks' together, just like fire...which in the end is still just the same energy changing forms yet again..and again...in endless micro and macro cycles.
This is done by which prime movers? Intent.
That can be seen as static if one wishes to tread that path...but such descriptions in words are entirely bogus... Humanity captures itself in its own ignorance by use of its own limited terms.
Don Juan used a term *lines of intent however.
One notices the discrete nature of each.. in that discretion is potential. Sort of like Line 1,2 and 3 at the power pole. they are discrete in phase primarily, the only power is between that discretion one to another or a ground.
Maxwell and Tesla pioneered in these original source areas and much of that work is still available, some on the web, among the most interesting is Maxwells lost equations... known but lost to some extent and recently re discovered. From the early 20th century. These men had clues vastly in advance of their time, that we still have yet to even remotely fathom. Much of Tesla's work is still not remotely fathomable.
(how that happened imho is another story, brilliance then that we don't see today.... the destructive reshaping of brain structures by means of external influences...as mundane as lying, and advertising etc)
Why was so much of this lost. Its like this. All of this science is vastly useful in war, and conflicts of all sorts, political and military control and overtly stated in here and there, by controlling a populations thought processes one can control them and any hostile intent etc....
billions of dollars are spent on research in these areas annually,
Col Beardens book address's (available on order from most large book stores, $250) a lot of that research including photo's of recent experiments with apparatus derived form Tesla's sketches..and some of his actual apparatus.
One of the most useful, common and pervasive tools used by governments, military and intelligence to prevail in conflict is ... *disinformation..spin..lies... and controlling information. Not a secret at all, but age old common military strategy. Confusion ruins an enemy.
Accordingly many in these research fields are currently off on utterly bogus wild goose chases because of the disinformation and spin injected into these fields at all levels. Not an accident.
Whomever wins the race to discover these root source mechanisms will control the world.... for whatever that's worth. Not much actually. But the idiot contingent think is relevant.
short sightedness.
It would not be fair to leave the gentle reader...most obnoxious morons, hanging though...even in that case, without providing a cure.. and there is a range of cures.
Cease lying to yourself and others about what you know (WE all make that mistake) because we think we know when we don't...so we are locked in by our limited notions that screen out any advanced understanding. Assuming one is an idiot in all things constantly, and assuming that everyone else is also is a very workable process,.. this opens the door to actual observation.
This does not mean trashing others is the cure..trashing refuses to look at the actualities under discussion.. Assuming near total ignorance on a scale of the 500 quintillion things there is to know, is simply the fact.. a man that knows all there is to know on the earth today is still an idiot by those standards.
Maxwell, Tesla and Einstein were not limited by 100 years of spin and bogus information as we are today...so these remain still in advance of today's best in almost all regards on the range of issues they were investigating.... imho ... despite 'advancing science'
What are the mechanisms of such destruction? Bogus links and synapses created in the brain, hard wiring to the bogus notions... these then act as a screen to preclude advance or more correct notions.
the human sees any change that requires the destruction of a body or brain part... or function... as *destructive apparently... and that makes some sense... this is why change is resisted... and why error tends to compound.
By knowing that one has no clue on a scale of absolutes such error is radically reduced... actual progress ensues.
bzzzzt.... heat is created by the electron *movement in the high resitance wire... the electron flow is not heat itself... it generates heat.
Heat IS increased relative molecular or atomic movement, and yes the atoms etc are composed in part by electrons...and those as part of the heat phenomena, faster movement of the atoms.
but this is not the same as the electricity moving in the wire... although there is extensive mixing (valence issues in regards to the outer ring of electrons on an atom).
There are no doubt a hundred other factors that we have not begun to comprehend.
and yes...heat is part of the electromagnetic spectrum...but its NOT electrons.
Maybe I wasn't clear, because you've misunderstood me. I wasn't talking about creation of heat, but about the fact that electrons in a chunk of conductor carrying no current zip around at a significant fraction of the speed of light just because of being at room temperature. The atoms also vibrate around their central positions, and both movements are present at an equilibrium temperature with no current being conducted. That is, in fact, heat. The point I was trying to make was to distinguish drift velocity, which is the average velocity of electrons associated with a current, from their much faster random movement with or without current.
your ad hominem was a little general. Could you elaborate on why for instance you think the quoted sentence above is not rational or whatever you mean by 'crackpot'?
I explained what I meant by in my extended remarks if you need to review those.
While you are not alone in your assessment, before I semi retired I had been retained by many fortune 500 companies, and several US govt agencies to debug some of their stick little problems.. (IBM and the US Dept of Energy for instance, those were typical) the first thing I did when meeting with their staff engineers and scientists is hold a meeting to explain this issue of how even though Ive been retained to address thier nasty little problem.. I really don't have much of a clue at all on a scale of absolutes.. and will be taking a very open minded look at whats up and asking a lot of questions in areas that I think I already know the answers to...but very often dont.
The solutions discovered have always been in discovering some area that everyone took for granted as accurate, true of factual... when it actually was not.
It is the unbiased look, that uncovers the real issues allowing a solution...and yes, the ones that made the original errors then tried to defend it hated my guts. Even after the solutions were implimented...then these justified thier behavior, solidifying thier bogus views. One had to ask then if these were so stunningly correct why had they not resolved the problem themselves ...requiring management to seek outside assistance from yer humble narrator here.
Now here is something you might find interesting or further reason to issue criticism. i am 64 years old..at age 55 I was starting to loose my ability to do complex logical analysis most especially on control loop circuitry... and I was getting feeble.
In the good old days I was not feeble.. I used to run American Motorcycle Assn, semi pro flat track (500cc triumph, bultaco and a 1000cc kawasaki for road racing..the rest was dirt ovals, and I won the 1972 Wilseyville cross country race in my class, with over 400 competitors from around the world)
by age 55 I was walking down stair ways gingerly to try and save the joints. and I was slow on control circuits.
Cutting to the chase, I did the research on the causes (amyloid accumulations in the nervous system and a few other things) currently no recognised cure for that.. and I implimented a cure...
two years ago I purchased a haul ass 600cc single OHC flat tracker and am back riding again etc. I have renewed my AMA class C license and am out with the boys. age generally under
25 or 30, in that truly kick ass sport.... and Im doing control logic with no diagram in many cases these days. and a few sweeties are eye balling me again.
that cant be all bad. and that is objective, quantifable advance.
But who knows if I can keep that up past 70... so far stamina and wits are improving each day. Im seeing the oposite in the general population .
Your own progress or not will depend on how bought in you are to the failing algorithm and thought processes and packets of bogus solutions that the culture has imbedded in you.
Phil, Whatever you have done in your working life and for your health ( and good luck with that), you often write a lot of worthless drivel that is way off topic.
Sorry, that is not correct. Most large power plant generators are wye-connected generators with the neutral either hard grounded or grounded through a 'resistance ground' (often done by use of a single-phase transformer whose secondary is connected to a resistor bank). The output is connected to the primary side of a three-phase step-up transformer. The primary of the transformer is usually delta connected. Then the secondary of the transformer is wye connected and feeds a high-voltage distribution line. The neutral of the main transformer's secondary is also grounded.
As for your electrons being siphoned of to ground all the time.... Well, the mind just boggles at the possibilities...
Hi Daestrom: If you have a drawing of what all of that looks like, that would be great. If not, maybe you could draw one up and scan it, then email. Someone else sent me some drawings and it made worlds of difference. Thanks. Brian
I grasped the concept that the electrons don't flow. That was clear a while back, and it makes sense. I can also grasp the concept of the EMF alternating back and forth every 1/60th of a second as well. So it's easy for me to see that the alternating electrons aren't the root cause of a light bulb lighting up. I know they play a part in helping the EMF travel. So that leaves me to believe it's the EMF traveling at near the speed of light which is what we could deem to be the "energy" of the system, right?
So when you refer to current, you are talking about how much EMF passes a point at a given time, right?
The driven electrons ARE the root cause... by friction with the other electrons in the atoms of the wire, those are caused to move faster.. the definition of heat... in a small enough wire there is enogh friction to cause the element to glow.
the speed of
system, right?
neutral doesn't change
won't carry current.
bulb won't
energy is
circle. All the
up somewhere and
EMF passes a
No... emf is is magnetic *effects of the electron movement. current is the actual NUMBER of electrons passing any given point and under which forces (voltage etc)
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