3 ms·

Electricity is like magic to most people. If you ask around you'll find that folks don't have the vaguest idea how it works. All they know is "plug it in and it

Electricity is like magic to most people. If you ask around you'll find that folks don't have the vaguest idea how it works. All they know is "plug it in and it turns on". These people are eating and sleeping inches from voltages that could easily kill them. Safety measures are fairly good (even with the terrible US plugs), but safety devices can only go so far. I would strongly encourage that everyone (even those who aren't interested in technical subjects) learn the water analogy and some electrical safety fundamentals. You don't have to know all the physics, but you should be given a basic intuition of what current, voltage, resistance, and power are.

yamtaddle 4y ago
There's a fun little book called "There Are No Electrons" the premise of which is that most early education on electricity is full of bullshit analogies, but that those are also misleading and confusing, so it basically sets out to present a different set of incorrect-but-useful analogies that're easier to understand and are good-enough to give you decent intuition for how electricity works—even if it's "well ackshually" entirely wrong.
xani_ 4y ago
Water analogues kinda assumes you somehow know hydraulics but not electrics tho.
- mindslight 4y ago
  I've used fluid analogies for intuition, even working as a professional design engineer. It's much easier to feel flow, pressure, momentum, etc than try to develop an independent intuition based solely on equations. I'm actually starting to learn hydraulics at the moment and it's a head trip. I know these schematic symbols must have some kind of method to them, but what. Also all of these components are just created by drilling holes in metal blocks? One simple trick manufacturers don't want you to know.
  - xani_ 4y ago
    Yeah but it's only similar from a very far away. Like just simple resistor, in electronics flow increases linearly with voltage, in hydraulics it doesn't. Or how in some hydraulics system it's not really the flow that's the motivator for action, like in simple hydraulic brakes it's not the flow of the fluid in a circle that powers anything, it's just that the push on fluid on one side pushes the brake pad on the other. So it's not really a flow but wave of pressure (which is kinda how current actually flows in the conductor anyway...)
    - mindslight 4y ago
      > simple resistor, in electronics flow increases linearly with voltage, in hydraulics it doesn't Sure. I'm not advocating substituting electronics components with a similar seeming hydraulic one and then taking it literally, but rather guiding your basic intuition. The linear resistor is actually much nicer than the nonlinear orifice when it comes time to calculate. And some times the fluid model even does a better job encouraging one to pay attention to things like parasitics, which are too easy to ignore when looking at a circuit diagram without them. > in some hydraulics system it's not really the flow that's the motivator for action, ... it's just that the push on fluid on one side pushes the brake pad on the other Like the gate of a common FET.

yamtaddle 4y ago

There's a fun little book called "There Are No Electrons" the premise of which is that most early education on electricity is full of bullshit analogies, but that those are also misleading and confusing, so it basically sets out to present a different set of incorrect-but-useful analogies that're easier to understand and are good-enough to give you decent intuition for how electricity works—even if it's "well ackshually" entirely wrong.

xani_ 4y ago

Water analogues kinda assumes you somehow know hydraulics but not electrics tho.

mindslight 4y ago
I've used fluid analogies for intuition, even working as a professional design engineer. It's much easier to feel flow, pressure, momentum, etc than try to develop an independent intuition based solely on equations. I'm actually starting to learn hydraulics at the moment and it's a head trip. I know these schematic symbols must have some kind of method to them, but what. Also all of these components are just created by drilling holes in metal blocks? One simple trick manufacturers don't want you to know.
- xani_ 4y ago
  Yeah but it's only similar from a very far away. Like just simple resistor, in electronics flow increases linearly with voltage, in hydraulics it doesn't. Or how in some hydraulics system it's not really the flow that's the motivator for action, like in simple hydraulic brakes it's not the flow of the fluid in a circle that powers anything, it's just that the push on fluid on one side pushes the brake pad on the other. So it's not really a flow but wave of pressure (which is kinda how current actually flows in the conductor anyway...)
  - mindslight 4y ago
    > simple resistor, in electronics flow increases linearly with voltage, in hydraulics it doesn't Sure. I'm not advocating substituting electronics components with a similar seeming hydraulic one and then taking it literally, but rather guiding your basic intuition. The linear resistor is actually much nicer than the nonlinear orifice when it comes time to calculate. And some times the fluid model even does a better job encouraging one to pay attention to things like parasitics, which are too easy to ignore when looking at a circuit diagram without them. > in some hydraulics system it's not really the flow that's the motivator for action, ... it's just that the push on fluid on one side pushes the brake pad on the other Like the gate of a common FET.