3 ms·
Actually, it's electric wattage which is the moving photons, not electric current. Energy flow. Joules per second, same as with laser outputs. So, the electr
by wbeaty 10y ago
Actually, it's electric wattage which is the moving photons, not electric current. Energy flow. Joules per second, same as with laser outputs.
So, the electric companies are selling us 60Hz photons.
But at the same time, the AC electricity just vibrates back and forth inside the wires, without any net forward motion.
About the only accurate diagram of EM spectrum I've ever encountered was the one made by R. Oppenheimer and sold as a classroom poster by The Exploratorium in SF. At the bottom, below VLF radio, we find audio-freq phone lines, and below that, 60Hz power lines. "Electric power" is on the EM spectrum, down below radio waves.
And yes, if we have a big enough antenna tower, then we can hook it up to a 60Hz dynamo, and spew 60Hz EM radiation out into space. Actually that concept was one of N. Tesla's great breakthroughs: hooking a steam-powered 50KHz alternator directly to an antenna, and broadcasting a silent carrier: CW. A couple years after his patents on this ran out, GE suddenly announced the "Alexanderson Alternator!" Finally making music/voice broadcasting possible! The public wondered how Alexanderson managed to come up with such an amazing idea. (If investors had bought Tesla stock, we'd have had AM radio ~20 years earlier. Tesla clearly grasped the concept that "radio" was the same thing as "electric power," just higher in frequency.)
https://www.datavisualization.ch/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/electromagnetic_spectrum_01.jpg https://www.datavisualization.ch/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/...
- bandrami 10y agoI remember that poster! I actually got a copy from the Exploratorium...