Can electricity flow through air w/out sparking?

On Mon, 21 Aug 2006 10:52:25 -0500, in message , Greg Hansen scribed:

So we get to the bottom line. What is the justification for your limited definition of electricity? Charged particles are, but an electric potential is not? Is that it? If that is the case, then I submit that you are wrong.

On Mon, 21 Aug 2006 10:52:25 -0500, in message , Greg Hansen scribed:

So are you saying that the superposition principle does not apply to electricity?

On Mon, 21 Aug 2006 10:52:25 -0500, in message , Greg Hansen scribed:

That's quite funny. I quoted texts that cannot be separated from electrical theory, and you apparently want me to read texts that can. That is, if electrodynamics can be. Seriously, post something concrete that shows you have any idea why current is electricity but voltage is not, as you have now asserted.

Referring back to the original question,

"Can electricity flow through air w/out sparking?" - Radium

If you tell him that an electric potential can exist in the air, do you think that is an answer to his question?

Maybe, to be more precise, he should have asked "Can an electrical current flow through air w/out sparking?" But it seemed pretty clear what he meant.

An electric potential, by itself, cannot provide energy to a load. Nor can a stationary charged particle. "Electricity," in the broadest definition I can think of that still makes practical sense, is the name given to any phenomenon which transports energy through the transfer of electrical charge between two physically-separate points. A lightning bolt is therefore electricity. The "flow" of current through a conductor is as well. An electromagnetic wave is not, although it can certainly result in the generation of "electricity" when received. And an electric or magnetic field, or just an electric potential, is most certainly not "electricity" all by itself.

Bob M.

On Wed, 23 Aug 2006 19:19:20 GMT, in message , "Bob Myers" scribed:

Well, I still see a qualifier ("all by itself") in the terminology. I think it's overly pedantic to disqualify AM, FM and microwave from the use of the term "electricity."

On Wed, 23 Aug 2006 10:11:42 -0500, in message , Greg Hansen scribed:

Well, you've taken it upon yourself to make several statements on behalf of the OP, where I think it's clear I was being very sarcastic in my reply to him, based on some previous experience. It was your words "electricity doesn't flow through the air, not in any way that matters" that I was responding to. My point is simply that I don't think the term "electricity" is rightly confined to mean only the flow of charged bodies through a wire.

There are a lot of people who work with and study the type of electricity that deals strictly with the flow of charges in circuits. If you don't think "electricity" is the proper way to describe this body of work, would you kindly suggest something that is?

Mark

"Mike Rieves" wrote in news:0KaFg.30739$ snipped-for-privacy@bignews6.bellsouth.net:

A bit of research will also prove beyond doubt that you, Mike Rieves (aka Porky) are a technical ignoramus and a contemptible piece of sociopathic human waste who devoid of all commonly accepted moral and ethical standards.

More information on this piece of pig shit can be found at:

You're free to think that, of course, but in its common usage we reserve the word "electricity" for something that involves charges and a conductive path. Broadening the definition of a term such as that to include other phenomena (which already have their own accepted labels) seems pointless and confusing to me, with no real benefit.

Bob M.

hehe hehe ... Very interesting post. I actually read it all (91 posts? i think). I don't know much about electricity, even though being in first year university.

Just posting to make a correction: being vague a 'link' is an URL

Have to tell you Radium makes some good thinking; leads me to think if all those who posted know what they are talking about -- because everyone is correcting eachother!

All those who mock him...you guys need to chill, and answer properly of the 91 posts half of them was mocking Radium's so pre-assumed 'stupidity.' You could have taught him all that there is need to know in those posts.

So do a service to the public and teach him if he is wrong, and learn something if you are wrong instead of correcting others.

Same goes to Radium -- stop being such a pain, make your answers and questions clear. I know you have been polite in your posts. Good Stuff.

Now, if you are thinking about replying to this post don't even bother unless it is positive.

Aa! Aa! No! don't touch that reply button!

'Radium' has never had a sensible thought in his entire life.

It's been tried. It's simply not possible.

Graham

Yes. Tesla and Marconi did some interesting experiments with that phenomenon.

You mean they were able to pass electric current through air w/out arcing, sparking, or coronal discharge?

You can't teach new things to old trolls.

Yes. Tesla even had ideas about supplying power to machines that way.

In a more modern context, that's how RFID tags are powered: there's no battery in the chip to drive the transmitter, the power for that is extracted from the carrier of the probe signal.

Of course, all of this "electricity through the air" is AC, and is in conjunction with associated magnetic fields.

Cheers,

Not precisely. They were, however, able to create an electromagnetic field, which varied at audio frequencies, which was able to pass through the air without arcing, sparking or coronal discharge. Philo Farnsworth built on their work.

Didn't the Fane Ionophone used an AF modulated RF discharge to produce a speaker with a very light "cone"? ISTR they needed the quartz-mounted discharge electrode tips replacing every so often. Weren't they mainly used as tweeters? Didn't they need careful shielding to avoid annoying amounts of RFI? A similar "speaking spark" phenomenon is not unheard of close to powerful MW and LW transmitters eg at joints in metal pipes, fences, etc.

HEY; look inside your xerox machine! the fine wires streching across the width if the paper and drum by the paper and he drum. They do it neately and consistently every day!

They transfer a charge through the air that lays down a charge onto the drum surface which is then modulated by the light from the copy... the net charge left picks up lampblack (toner) particles which are then transferred to the paper having an opposite charge, also put there by the other fine wire, then baked for presentation.

In being forced through the air, driven by several KV, the barging ions also create ozone, which you can often smell around the machine; that ozone not completely absorbed by an ozone filter in the cooling air path.

Angelo Campanella.