• Agent641
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    2 days ago

    In an AC system, the pedastal fan in your bedroom is electromagnetically coupled to the turbine at the coal/gas/hydro/nuc power station. They instantly and directly influence each other, and they both are spinning in tandem like two wheels on a car connected by an axel. Slowing the rotation of the fan with your hand technically increases the torque of the turbine, if only by an immeasurably small amount.

    • justastranger@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      Fun Fact: An improperly shielded (or old and deteriorating) fan can be influenced by stray electromagnetic radiation. They’ll pick up AM radio signals occasionally, creating an off tone in the fan noise that sounds like a person talking faintly on the other side of the fan.

    • MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip
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      31 minutes ago

      AC motors are more powerful but also more noisy. You need that power in your kitchen mixer but you need quiet in a fan. Modern WC rooms now have a DC fan, old ones have the loud one.

  • draco_aeneus@mander.xyz
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    1 day ago

    Kind of like how a piston in an engine also kinda just “shakes about” (because of explosions or steam or whatever) and yet delivers a lot of power.

  • ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org
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    2 days ago

    Steam engine pistons also move back and forth less than a meter at a time, and still could push trains a million kilometers in the forward direction. It’s that they’re pushing right while moving right and left when moving left. That’s like when AC current and voltage are in phase, delivering positive net power. Meanwhile, something that pulls left when moving right is consuming power.

  • Dadifer
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    2 days ago

    This is analogous to saying, the blades on a wind turbine don’t go anywhere, they simply spin, and yet power is created.

      • credo
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        2 days ago

        The washing machine just spins left then right, left then right, and the clothes come out clean.

  • LouNeko
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    2 days ago

    Whats crazier is that in direct current individual electrons don’t travel at the speed of light through the conductor, but only at roughly 1cm/s.

    Or, that thanks to the “skin effect” the current actualy travels in a very thin layer below the outside surface of cconductor. Most of the conductor doesn’t transfer power but only maintains the magnetic field to keep the current flowing.

    • dukatos@lemmy.zip
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      2 days ago

      No, skin effect only occurs on higher frequencies. That is why coaxial cabel is invented. But then they realized the energy in coax transfers in a completely different way.

    • Tattorack
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      2 days ago

      That’s why you don’t have one thick copper cable but multiple thin ones.

      • meekah@discuss.tchncs.de
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        2 days ago

        I’m far from an expert, but that’s usually just for flexibility of the cable as far as I understand. Power wires inside the walls are one thick copper wire (or rather three for live, neutral and ground)

        • ijustliketrains
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          2 days ago

          Correct, solid copper bus bars are also common in certain applications.

  • marcos
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    2 days ago

    Ad on a DC system, the electrons move dozens of times slower than a person walking. They also don’t get anywhere, and power is still delivered.

    • Admetus@sopuli.xyz
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      2 days ago

      It’s fun to calculate that from a socket to a light bulb it may take something close to a few hours for one electron to get to the bulb, but even then that’s an average. Some electrons don’t even get to the light bulb ever.

      • marcos
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        2 days ago

        IMO, the more interesting thing is how they are all always moving at a large fraction of the speed of light, but over any large distance, they are that slow.

        Things never cancel each other so well on the macroscopic world.

    • dalekcaan@feddit.nl
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      2 days ago

      It’s kind of shocking, after a lifetime of assuming electrons whiz through wires at the speed of light, to find out they move so slowly that the speed at which they move is referred to as “electron drift.”

  • Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club
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    2 days ago

    Elections merely facilitate the transfer the power, like (the non-leading edges of?) a drive shaft or cogs.

    Even with DC you need a loop (well, a difference).

    Carbon fuel one-use mentality where you burn your supply (chemically stored energy) doesn’t apply, tho non-rechargeable batteries make it seem so.

    • mholiv
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      2 days ago

      It’s even crazier than that. It’s not even the electrons at the “leading edge” it’s the EM field they create even separate the of the wires that actually contain the electrons.

      https://youtu.be/bHIhgxav9LY

      And the follow-up with a physical experiment after the first video started a huge drama.

      https://youtu.be/oI_X2cMHNe0

      • calamityjanitor
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        2 days ago

        God I hate that video, he explains everything so badly to the point of completely misinforming viewers. He’s talking about a special situation of AC current, but uses DC in the thought experiment. He makes it seem as if the field travels to the load in a direct path and the wires don’t matter. No, the EM field is completely based on the wire.

      • Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club
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        2 days ago

        No, the leading edge of the mechanical transfer of power - I was trying to make a faux comparison that electrons would be the inside of the shaft/cog & the fields the leading edges (that transfer the power & are moving more).

        I mangled the comparison, should have given up on it. Vibes are hard to compare with anything non-vibes.

        Great youtubing in the links, that’s how you get them views (benefit several creators and spread science)!
        (*I just skimmed them for the general vibe, I’m not voicing support in case they are weird ppl, I don’t know them.)

        Edit: while speeding through I noticed a very cool simulation (software), yt/mcez0ri9yPY, these are very neat visuals.

    • MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip
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      2 days ago

      non-rechargeable batteries

      Yeah, why are they still a thing? Recharchables have all the advantages but more.

      • sobchak@programming.dev
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        2 days ago

        Low self discharge. Good for ultra low power devices like remote controls or lights only used on occasion where a rechargeable battery would self discharge faster than the rate of actual use.

    • tetris11@feddit.uk
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      1 day ago

      Can you imagine being the guy who just, like, claps his hands together and kills the electron, snuffing out all existence

    • Agent641
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      2 days ago

      Mum says it’s my turn to use the electron!

  • AE5NE@lemmy.radio
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    2 days ago

    imagine a bicycle chain between two sprockets, if you crank it foward and back like 1 inch, over and over again, you can clearly transmit power without the chain links going much of anywhere

  • this@sh.itjust.works
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    2 days ago

    The voltage(electrical equivalent of force) is what travels.

    It’s analagous to pushing something away from you with a really really really long stick, then pulling it back again. The stick didn’t move much but you still affected something far away.

    • Hazmatastic
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      2 days ago

      People are really just mobile energy nets holding other energy in. What if the fields of our energy nets directly influenced each other? Jk… unless…?