electricity

After the riveting discussion of different AC voltage schemes used by different countries I thought a bit about what consumes electricity in my home. While the supply is purely AC, an awful lot of it is actually consumed as DC. Most of my electronics convert the AC to DC and most of my LED...

Just something I have been wondering about recently. Most appliances can just as easily be designed for 120V mains as 240V mains so it is six of one and half of the other. More heavy duty appliances will require a higher voltage and sometimes, only three-phase will do (for example, I used to...

There are a lot of sources that claim surge protectors can't protect from a lightning because there simply is too much current and the only way to effectively protect any device is to unplug it during storms. On the other hand, several manufacturers say that their protectors, when overloaded...

How much electricity can you produce from a small amount of manure? I've recently been watching some old episodes of "The Good Life", a BBC sitcom about a couple who decide to go self sufficient and live off the land from their home in the suburbs. I've just watched the episode where they get...

I'm not sure if this is the correct area to post this, but it's science related so I'll start here. I'm looking for some advice and suggestions for a gaming (tabletop RPG) scenario I'm working on. Especially from those of a scientific or devious bent. Basically the setting for the scenario is...

Just a mile from me is a large field that used to yield corn, soybeans and the like, and is converted into a solar energy farm -- a sea of electricity-generating solar panels. Does this food-for-energy trade-off make sense?

http://www.greenoptimistic.com/2010/12/25/karpen-pile/ A "battery" that's been producing electricity since the 1950's.... This sounds like total BS. I wonder if this qualifies for the MDC.

What is the Greenest way to produce Electricity?

A while back I stumbled upon this site about what is electricity (the site has large sections of white space for some reason, so don't think it's over before it's over). Being a layman, there were always nagging questions. This site addresses them. For example, I was taught something along...

This seems like a simple question but is it? We all know that the speed of light is about 300,000 km/s (186,000 mi/s) in a vacuum and that this applies to all other electromagnetic waves too. We also know that this figure is reduced when travelling through air, water, glass, etc. It is often...

In an accident at the weekend in my city, a dog was killed, electrocuted by a street light. Monday article http://www.thecourier.co.uk/output/2008/02/25/newsstory10981494t0.asp Tuesday article http://www.thecourier.co.uk/output/2008/02/26/newsstory10986115t0.asp There were concerns that as...

Sigh. She has to be in the right mood for her powers to work.

Some friends and I have been playing with a 'shocking autopsy' game. The (ostensible, layman's view) design is as follows: Box, with picture of human on top. The human has various holes in it - these are lined with a silvery metal, and into each hole fits a plastic object. A wire comes out...

OK, this is going to sound trivial and probably a little dumb, but every time I get out of my car, and close my door, I get shocked. I try different things to avoid getting shocked, but besides closing the door with my foot, I haven't found a good and easy solution. It freaking hurts and now...

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/03/09/science-nervessound-20070309.html I do not claim to know anything about neuroscience, but wouldn't the fact that at least rudimentary machine/brain interfaces have been constructed using electrodes connected to a computer indicate contrary to this...

Please, will somebody with the scientific know-how demolish this for me? www.thunderbolts.info

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70882-0.html?tw=wn_index_2 My question; what is a 16 year old doing reading Nature? Athon

Is this a bit of camera trickery, along with a few shills? The guy claims to produce electricity, like an electric eel, from his crotch. youtube.com/watch?v=kmGGvBZGAhY (Sorry, you'll have to copy/paste - not enough posts yet for me to post a clickable link)

Simple question. What actually is the speed of electricity in a wire? Specifically a phone call in a standard twisted pair copper wire? I'm mildly curious about how far an electronic bank transfer actually could have gone in the five days it is predicted to take. (It will be required to cover...

Germany's ambitious plan to phase out nuclear power by 2020 while also reducing its reliance on fossil fuels has made it a leader in efforts to fulfill the Kyoto protocol. But critics are now predicting an energy crisis. Germany's government is hoping that abandoning its reliance on coal -...

Watching Proof Positive before my new favorite show "Ghost Plumbers" comes on.... Why do paranormal investigators use electro-magnetic devices to detect ghosts? Why not diving rods or geiger counters or some other nonsensical device?

Isn't the time ripe, that we pass some legislation forcing people to turn off lights in their house, or their radios and tv's when they run up to the store, and...well, you get the point. With the energy crunch that we are facing once too often, again...isn't it about time we wake up and do...

Apparently someone has created a fuel cell that can generate electricity from human excrement (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3499006.stm). This gives me a horrible vision of how people might go about "recharging" their mobile phones or laptops in the distant future... :p

My Playstation 2 controller zapped me good the other day. At least I have a good way of getting out my stress over this--I pet my cats and then zap them on the nose.

I'm having a discussion over the computer with someone that believes in dowsing. (Sadly, this person is also a medical doctor.) But this person isn't a True Believer so possibly I can make some headway. The problem that I don't know that much about the topic. (I didn't go searching for a...