An electrical lesson

[vmanes]

What in the world is electricity and where does it go after it leaves the motor in your lathe or mill?

[jonsca]

Carl Volt, Frank Amp, James Watt, Bob Transformer

...was priceless LOL

[Will Gresham]

Please tell me that was intended as a joke....

I can see some poor student coming across it and taking it to hand in as part of an essay :P Would serve them right, mind :D

[vmanes]

Yes, it's all humor.

When I first read it, I thought for sure it had been written by Dave Barry - it's so his style.

But really, how can the power company justify charging us again and again for the same electrons that go back and forth?

[jwenting]

Ah, it's even better! They got a small detail wrong there and that's assuming it's electrons that go back and forth at all.
In reality electrons hardly move at all, they just pass energy between themselves.
So all that flows is something quite eathereal, impossible to catch on camera except by proxy (and do you trust proxies?).
So in fact you're paying for an illusion, the illusion that you're getting something.
And your electrical devices happily power themselves off that same illusion, the illusion that they're being powered!

[vmanes]

Damn, that sounds like the Democrats!