RE: Watt meters

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "John H. Couture" <couturejh-at-mgte-dot-com> 


I have been trying for years to get the imaginary currents out of my
capacitors and inductors with no success.

All kidding aside, I find it interesting that something as real as an
electrical current can only be represented as something imaginary. Maybe it
is because Mathematics was invented by imperfect man but currents were made
by a perfect nature or God.

John Couture

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-----Original Message-----
From: Tesla list [mailto:tesla-at-pupman-dot-com]
Sent: Friday, March 19, 2004 7:54 PM
To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: Re: Watt meters


Original poster: dave pierson <davep-at-quik-dot-com>

Uhmmmmm
The term 'imaginary current' is, in itself, somewhat imaginary.
It is a concept, rather than an actual, measurable, current.

Any Given Circuit has One (exactly) current in it.

For SOME PURPOSES it is handy to _imagine_ this
as two 'components' at 90 degrees (right angles), each with a
magnitude determined by the circuit elements.  The wattmeters,
etc, simply use mechanical placement of coils to do an
'analog computation' that takes this into account.

(OK: Its about a week's class time to explain properly...  which
i can, at best, approach....)

best
dwp