What Happens When You Flip the Light Switch? - Comments

[anorlunda]

anorlunda submitted a new PF Insights post

What Happens When You Flip the Light Switch?

Continue reading the Original PF Insights Post.

 

[William White]

why is almost every paragraph finsihed with "this is physics"

what else is it? black magic?

 

[anorlunda]

why is almost every paragraph finsihed with "this is physics"

what else is it? black magic?

I was trying to point out the difference between physícs, engineered features, and economics, because they are commingled.

 

[dlgoff]

anorlunda submitted a new PF Insights post

What Happens When You Flip the Light Switch?

Continue reading the Original PF Insights Post.

This is awesome anorlunda.
To see some of what is required from the regulator's standpoint, here are a couple papers that can be viewed with Adobe Reader.

Frequency Response Standard Whitepaper

Balancing and Frequency Control

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Very interesting! I learned a lot!

 

[anorlunda]

To see some of what is required from the regulator's standpoint, here are a couple papers that can be viewed with Adobe Reader.

Frequency Response Standard Whitepaper

Thanks for your kind words. I just read that paper on frequency response with interest.

When I started in this business, just after the Northeast Blackout of 1965, every single generator used a 5% regulation (i.e. 20% change in power for 1% change in frequency); there were no exceptions that we knew of. The reason was that if everybody used the same gain, then all generators shared all load changes in proportion to their rated capacity. That is pretty close to optimum. There were rumors that some bad actors use wedges to force open the turbine valves the last couple of percent which would make them not respond to frequency, but it was never proved.

Later in the 2000s, I was shocked to learn that very many plants no longer had frequency governing active full time. But I was told by many people that it's not a problem. FERC and NERC have standards about frequency and time and tie-line excursions and those standards were being met, so I had to concede that no harm was readily apparent. The paper you linked challenges that.

I was also shocked to learn here on PF, that operators in New Zealand tuned they hydro governers for less than 5% (more than 20% per %). The argument is that hydro plants are uniquely able to respond rapidly to incremental changes. That too was news to me.

I did not mention in the article that on a huge interconnection with billions of "light switches" around, that almost all random switch-on events are canceled by switch-off events. Thus frequency regulation by speed governors is most important on the smallest grids. I once vacationed on a small island and heard the refrigerator motor noticably speed-up and slow-down all day and night.

Readers can make their own frequency measurement device, plug it into a wall socket, and keep an eye themselves on what is happening. Your socket is just as good as any other place on the grid to make that measurement.

 

[aikismos]

Thomas Edison didn't invent the light bulb. http://www.livescience.com/43424-who-invented-the-light-bulb.html

 

[anorlunda]

Thomas Edison didn't invent the light bulb. http://www.livescience.com/43424-who-invented-the-light-bulb.html

I should have said first practical light bulb. I think he deserves the credit. According to https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0084AVTNK/?tag=pfamazon01-20, Alexander Graham Bell's phone was terrible, and not usable for long distance. Bell hired Edison and he designed the first practical phone for Bell under contract. Edison got cheated out of fame and credit for that work, I think he deserves payback on the light bulb thing.

 

[berkeman]

Small typo in the first paragraph...

high speech chronograph

 

[sophiecentaur]

Thomas Edison didn't invent the light bulb. http://www.livescience.com/43424-who-invented-the-light-bulb.html

But the winners get to write the history.
None of these things are ever down to just one person. Don't lose too much sleep over the injustice of it all. Edison made a seriously important contribution to what we switch on every day.
P.S. Or is your family chasing some royalties on an ancient patent?

 

[dlgoff]

Readers can make their own frequency measurement device, plug it into a wall socket, and keep an eye themselves on what is happening. Your socket is just as good as any other place on the grid to make that measurement.

Or they could find one of these old resonant reed type frequency meters like this one I found for my collection. But that's a different subject.

 

[anorlunda]

Or they could find one of these old resonant reed type frequency meters like this one I found for my collection. But that's a different subject.

View attachment 87837

WOW! A vibrating reed meter with both 50 and 60 Hz sets of reeds. That has got to be hightly unsual and rare. I would say that you have a valuable item there. Congratulations.

 

[sophiecentaur]

I saw this meter on a visit to Pool (UK). It was from the local power station that was closed yonks ago. Not as exotic but it was an exciting find

 

[dlgoff]

Not as exotic but it was an exciting find

Excites me too.

 

[aikismos]

But the winners get to write the history.
None of these things are ever down to just one person. Don't lose too much sleep over the injustice of it all. Edison made a seriously important contribution to what we switch on every day.
P.S. Or is your family chasing some royalties on an ancient patent?

Do you think that not lying and then avoiding correcting a lie is any less immoral.

 

[sophiecentaur]

Do you think that not lying and then avoiding correcting a lie is any less immoral.

You seem to be a little bit emotionally involved with this issue (from the wording of your post). PF tries to be a bit more dispassionate.
When someone reports on a historical event they may well write differently to someone else yet neither of them is necessarily "lying'". In any complex sequence of events (Science is a great example) there is often no truth involved. It's just interpretation. Do you have any hard evidence to support your introduction of the term "lying" in this context? Bearing in mind that this discussion is not PF style at all.

 

[aikismos]

You seem to be a little bit emotionally involved with this issue (from the wording of your post). PF tries to be a bit more dispassionate.
When someone reports on a historical event they may well write differently to someone else yet neither of them is necessarily "lying'". In any complex sequence of events (Science is a great example) there is often no truth involved. It's just interpretation. Do you have any hard evidence to support your introduction of the term "lying" in this context? Bearing in mind that this discussion is not PF style at all.

@sophiecentaur,

Let's discuss that PF-style, and the history of science. (Is there a flashy song akin to Gungam style for us to play?)

I posted the link to inform your readers to correct an assertion that Edison created the light-bulb, a well known myth. It would like being on a bulletin board dedicated to cars and saying that Henry Ford invented to the automobile, a rather indefensible act, or in a more obscure example, saying that RCA invented the television (though they may have beat the snot out of Philo Farnsworth to win the economic benefits). I guess a question I would pose to you, a thinker of the first-order, is why you would accept such an inaccurate assertion just because "winners get to write history"? It seems a little contradictory on your part to insist on a high-caliber of discussion and then defend well known inaccuracies, especially in a domain where reputation is important such as science. Now, while you seem to attribute to my motivations and use of figurative language aspirations which aren't present, let me rephrase my original post in a slightly less ambiguous manner:

"For you, dear reader, man, woman, or child of intellect, dissever yourself not from the fact *wags fingers about* that Thomas Alva edison was not the first human being to have a glass ampule full of an inert gas and a filament to be used to create light in a modular and wonderfully complex innovation of technology to provide light to human-kind. And, lo, though the author has done a wonderful job of filling in some of the details of power distribution from a technical standpoint and considering physical ramifications, I bid you be more discriminating on what you accept as historical fact, for we live in a world where people in the first-world, the same consumers of these ripples through time-space understood by said physical and technological laws use said lighting to perpetuate pseudoscience and revisionist history and deny all manner of things mainstream physics such as the impact that burning fossil fuels and altering the global climate. And that there, dear reader, is a most remarked curiosity of note, that perhaps the most important thing that happens when you flip a light switch is that fifty years hence, the world is forced to deal with the rising sea levels and other manner of effects you might not think of."

Of course, a quick posting to a link showing the OP's inaccuracy seemed just easier.

So, no, dear moderator of discerning taste, no disrespect was meant, and I lose no sleep over ignorance of history. And, yes, history, is complicated, and often to the victor go the spoils. But there's confusion. Thomas Edison simply didn't invent the lightbulb. If you want the highest quality in posts, shouldn't it start with fact checking when building a narrative, especially when it has to do with the history of physics on a bulletin board aptly named PF? (And I accused no one of telling a lie.)

I know this forum isn't truly a public sphere so many not have the same moral imperatives, and as moderator, you are charged with keeping order, but I would think anyone who has a love of science would prefer the more accurate to misleading perpetuation of a known myth.

 

[sophiecentaur]

That was quite a tirade - out of nowhere.
I think it may be more accurate (and relevant) to say, of Edison, that his laboratory team came up with the idea of using Tungsten for the filaments of bulbs. This was, I believe, after an extended programme of tests, using pretty well every substance know to man. It was, as he said (?) a matter of 99% Perspiration and 1% Inspiration. You may shed some light and tell me that is also a fiction.

 

[berkeman]

I'd prefer that if you want to continue that discussion, you take it to a private conversation. Or if you prefer, I can break it off as a separate thread. We need to keep this thread on-topic about the Insights article. Thanks.

 

[sophiecentaur]

I'd prefer that if you want to continue that discussion, you take it to a private conversation. Or if you prefer, I can break it off as a separate thread. We need to keep this thread on-topic about the Insights article. Thanks.

No. It's no more than a hill of beans, as someone once said.
The tungsten bit was fascinating though.

 

[ddesaneis]

Consider what happens during the flip of the switch. Let a galvanic cell be the power source.

A galvanic reaction exports a single electron w/ chemical reaction energy (not a small energy change), after determination of circuit integrity.

The anode and the cathode reactants must SIMULTANEOUSLY detect the integrity (no open circuit) of a (macroscopic) inductor, versus simply detecting that an adjacent molecule that is a conductor.

The anode / cathode reactants must also detect the integrity of a path through the electrolyte between the anode and the cathode (sometimes including through a salt bridge), versus detection of w/ a nearby single electrolyte molecule.

Applying chemical reaction energy to a single conductive molecule would result in high current through high resistance E = 1/2 LI^2. Limitation of thermal loss requires distribution of magnetic energy among the molecules in the current path within a macroscopic inductor, instead of a packet of magnetic energy passing from one molecule to the next.

Electrical current would correspond to the number of times per second that this electron passes through any location (cross-section) within the circuit.

eV = 1/2 LI^2

The galvanic reaction will reclaim its electron, before the electron could make a second pass.

 

[sophiecentaur]

must SIMULTANEOUSLY detect the integrity

Why do you use the word "simultaneously"? Just as with any arrangement of charges, the status takes time to establish itself. Not battery suddenly appears out of empty space but it will be assembled and charges will migrate to establish an equilibrium. The same point was discussed recently about the depletion layer in a solid state diode, which also does not suddenly appear.
Once a circuit is connected across the galvanic cell, there will be another redistribution of charges. In this case, however, the charges will continue to flow until the chemicals, providing the potential energy, are exhausted.
The fastest that any EM phenomenon can be established involves c. There is no need for Instantaneity to be involved.

 

[OmCheeto]

0.01 through 10 seconds gave me a flashback to when they put young Om in charge of everything the day the external grid went down that was supplying power to his nuclear submarine, while the reactor was shut down, and the diesel was down for maintenance.
Thanks for the memories!
Lots of flashing lights and sirens.

ps. The reactor did not melt down. Pats self on back.
pps. I would expand more on the story, but then I'd have to kill everyone.
ppps. If you look closely at the image, there is a chrome bar running the width of the middle panel, about waist height. I've just realized that It is the equivalent of the handles they put in the passenger sections of automobiles. Never thought about that before.

[edit]Ha! The profanity filter even works on links. I did not know that. Off to the TIL thread.

 

[analogdesign]

ppps. If you look closely at the image, there is a chrome bar running the width of the middle panel, about waist height. I've just realized that It is the equivalent of the handles they put in the passenger sections of automobiles. Never thought about that before.

What museum is that photo from? I'd very much like to go there.

 

[sophiecentaur]

OmCheeto was clearly deeply immersed in his job.

 

[OmCheeto]

What museum is that photo from? I'd very much like to go there.

After several minutes of googling, it appears to have been a temporary exhibit at the Smithsonian, back around 2002.
You'll have to join the Navy, if you want to see one in real life.
You can ask @B. Elliott about what that's like.
He is the last idiot I know of, who joined up.

 

[analogdesign]

After several minutes of googling, it appears to have been a temporary exhibit at the Smithsonian, back around 2002.

Oh bummer, it looks like a fun exhibit.

You'll have to join the Navy, if you want to see one in real life.
You can ask @B. Elliott about what that's like.
He is the last idiot I know of, who joined up.

Haha, they don't let "mature" engineers like me into the Navy. haha

I know two guys who were Nuclear Power offices on submarines in the Navy after undergrad. They both ended up getting PhDs (one of them I still know personally) and they both are extremely successful guys.

 

[ddesaneis]

must SIMULTANEOUSLY detect the integrity

Why do you use the word "simultaneously"? Just as with any arrangement of charges, the status takes time to establish itself. Not battery suddenly appears out of empty space but it will be assembled and charges will migrate to establish an equilibrium. The same point was discussed recently about the depletion layer in a solid state diode, which also does not suddenly appear.
Once a circuit is connected across the galvanic cell, there will be another redistribution of charges. In this case, however, the charges will continue to flow until the chemicals, providing the potential energy, are exhausted.
The fastest that any EM phenomenon can be established involves c. There is no need for Instantaneity to be involved.

"Why do you use the word "simultaneously"? Just as with any arrangement of charges, the status takes time to establish itself."

Connecting a galvanic cell to an open circuit will not cause a chemical reaction, required for adding magnetic or electrostatic energy into the conductors within the open circuit.

If no previous closed circuit occurred, then the galvanic cell exists as 2 unconnected half cells. Half cells reactions do not produce magnetic or electrostatic energy.

""Placing a piece of reactant in an electrolyte solution makes a half cell. Unless it is connected to another half cell via an electric conductor and salt bridge, NO reaction will take place in a half cell.""
http://www.science.uwaterloo.ca/~cchieh/cact/c123/halfcell.html

"Not battery suddenly appears out of empty space but it will be assembled and charges will migrate to establish an equilibrium."

During open circuit conditions, the 2 half cells within the galvanic cell are as isolated from each other as when empty space separates them. Before a closed circuit occurs, the galvanic cell has no means of adding electrostatic or magnetic energy to the conductor, or the switch.

"The same point was discussed recently about the depletion layer in a solid state diode, which also does not suddenly appear."

I did not see that entry. However, forward diode bias can suddenly INCREASE the conductivity of both anode and cathode (not just the junction). An increase in junction conductivity alone would not greatly increase diode conductivity.

"Once a circuit is connected across the galvanic cell, there will be another redistribution of charges. In this case, however, the charges will continue to flow until the chemicals, providing the potential energy, are exhausted."

The conductors are inductors. W/o an inductor, there is a place to export the magnetic energy (E = 1/2 LI^2.

Note: The path through the electrolyte is just as import for electrical current, as the closed circuit. Removal of a salt bridge would stop electrical energy production.

"The fastest that any EM phenomenon can be established involves c. There is no need for Instantaneity to be involved."

The same set of galvanic reactions that generates the electron will remove the electron. Nothing replaces the electron, until another set of galvanic reactions occur. An exported electron cannot remain within the external circuit longer than time required for a chemical reaction.

In theory, the distance between the switch and the galvanic cell could be continental (given superconductive lines to the switch).

 

[sophiecentaur]

In theory, the distance between the switch and the galvanic cell could be continental (given superconductive lines to the switch).

Of course. And it would take many milliseconds for the connected circuit to settle down. c would still limit the time taken. You have no evidence of anything happening instantly; you are just surmising.

 

[ddesaneis]

Why do you use the word "simultaneously"? Just as with any arrangement of charges, the status takes time to establish itself. Not battery suddenly appears out of empty space but it will be assembled and charges will migrate to establish an equilibrium. The same point was discussed recently about the depletion layer in a solid state diode, which also does not suddenly appear.
Once a circuit is connected across the galvanic cell, there will be another redistribution of charges. In this case, however, the charges will continue to flow until the chemicals, providing the potential energy, are exhausted.
The fastest that any EM phenomenon can be established involves c. There is no need for Instantaneity to be involved.

Of course. And it would take many milliseconds for the connected circuit to settle down. c would still limit the time taken. You have no evidence of anything happening instantly; you are just surmising.

Some evidence exists, because galvanic cells are amazing. Their reactants must detect the integrity of path within both the (continent-long) conductor and the electrolyte, BEFORE they could convert chemical reaction energy into magnetic or electrostatic energy. After the galvanic reaction, the entire amount of magnetic energy must remain within the superconductor (w/o the electron from the galvanic reaction). If the galvanic electron remained in the circuit, a hot spot would result from the concentration of magnetic energy within the electron, and magnetic energy would only be available at the location of the galvanic electron. Note: 0.356 eV (typical galvanic reaction energy) applied to a single conductor molecule would produce high current through high resistance (rapid conversion to thermal energy) E = 1/2 LI^2. Note: There is no settle-down of volts, because there are zero volts within the superconductive material and no exchanges between magnetic and electrostatic energy.

 

[sophiecentaur]

Some evidence exists, because galvanic cells are amazing.

I doubt that is true. c is 1ft per ns and the rise time of a chemical reaction of that sort is not like Nitroglycerine so how would you ever detect it over a galvanic cell of Lab proportions?
When you get down to it, there is either a rational explanation, based on a propagation speed that's somewhat below c or it's instant Magic. Which one should a PF member go for?

 

[anorlunda]

ddesaneis, sophiecentaur,

What in the world are you two debating and what does it have to do with the Insights article? Perhaps you could move it to a conversation.

 

[sophiecentaur]

ddesaneis, sophiecentaur,

What in the world are you two debating and what does it have to do with the Insights article? Perhaps you could move it to a conversation.

Doesn't it relate to what happens when you flip a switch? It's just at an earlier stage in the process.
But I now realize the Insights article is essentially Engineering and not what we were kicking around. Dunno how I got into this thread, aamof. I didn't spot the Orange Flag.
Sorry chaps.

 

[ddesaneis]

Some evidence exists, because galvanic cells are amazing.

I doubt that is true. c is 1ft per ns and the rise time of a chemical reaction of that sort is not like Nitroglycerine so how would you ever detect it over a galvanic cell of Lab proportions?
When you get down to it, there is either a rational explanation, based on a propagation speed that's somewhat below c or it's instant Magic. Which one should a PF member go for?

Perhaps, detection of a closed circuit does not require propagation within the circuit.

One scenario that avoids speed of light propagation during detection could be that metals already contain conductive paths within them. Contact between 2 metal objects (a switch) joins conductive paths within each conductive object.

In other words, a switch can join a galvanic cell to existing conductive paths, instead causing the galvanic cell to detect the conductivity of every atom within an unknown path.

 

[sophiecentaur]

Perhap you would start another thread as requested so we can knock this nonsense on the head.