This is a keeper! Bob Sent from my iPhone On Nov 10, 2010, at 10:02 AM, Jack Olson <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Do you start feeling lonely when your mailbox drops below 200 per week? > I will fill it with this, hope it helps.... > > -=-=-=- > > T H E H I S T O R Y O F E L E C T R I C I T Y > > Today's scientific question is: What in the world is electricity? > And where does it go after it leaves the toaster? > > Here is a simple experiment that will teach you an important electrical lesson: > On a cool, dry day, scuff your feet along a carpet, then reach your hand into a > friends mouth and touch one of his dental fillings. Did you notice how your > friend twitched violently and cried out in pain? This teaches us that electricity > can be a very powerful force, but we must never use it to hurt others unless > we need to learn an important electrical lesson. > > It also teaches us how an electrical circuit works. When you scuffed your feet, > you picked up batches of "electrons," which are very small objects that carpet > manufacturers weave into carpet so that they will attract dirt. The electrons > travel through your bloodstream and collect in your finger, where they form a > spark that leaps to your friends filling, then travel down to his feet and back > into the carpet, thus completing the circuit. > > AMAZING ELECTRONIC FACT: If you scuffed your feet long enough without > touching anything, you would build up so many electrons that your finger would > explode! > But this is nothing to worry about... unless you have carpeting. > > Although we modern persons tend to take our electric lights, radios, mixers, > etc. for granted. Hundreds of years ago people did not have any of these > things, which is just as well because there was no place to plug them in. Then > along came the first Electrical Pioneer, Benjamin Franklin, who flew a kite in a > lightning storm and received a serious electrical shock. This proved that > lightning was powered by the same force as carpets, but it also damaged > Franklin's brain so severely that he started speaking only in incomprehensible > maxims, such as, "A penny saved is a penny earned." Eventually he had to be > given a job running the post office. > > After Franklin came a herd of Electrical Pioneers whose names have become > part of our electrical terminology: Myron Volt, Mary Louise Amp, James Watt, > Bob Transformer, etc. These pioneers conducted many important electrical > experiments - - Among them, Galvani discovered (this is the truth) that when > he attached two different kinds of metal to the leg of a frog, an electrical > current developed and the frog's leg kicked, even though it was no longer > attached to the frog, which was dead anyway. Galvani's discovery led to > enormous advances in the field of amphibian medicine. Today, skilled veterinary > surgeons can take a frog that has been seriously injured or killed, implant > pieces of metal in its muscles, and watch it hop back into the pond just like a > normal frog, except for the fact that it sinks like a stone. > > But the greatest Electrical Pioneer of them all was Thomas Edison, who was a > brilliant inventor despite the fact that he had little formal education and lived in > New Jersey. Edison's first major invention in 1877 was the phonograph, which > could soon be found in thousand of American homes, where it basically sat until > 1923, when the record was invented. But Edison's greatest achievement came > in 1879 when he invented the electric company. > Edison's design was a brilliant adaptation of the simple electrical circuit: the > electric company sends electricity through a wire to a customer, then > immediately gets the electricity back through another wire, then (this is the > brilliant part) sends it right back to the customer again. > > This means that an electric company can sell a customer the same batch of > electricity thousands of times a day and never get caught, since very few > customers take the time to examine their electricity closely. In fact, the last > year any new electricity was generated was 1937; the electric companies have > been merely re-selling it ever since, which is why they have so much time to > apply for rate increases. > > Today, thanks to men like Edison and Franklin, and frogs like Galvani's, we > receive almost unlimited benefits from electricity. For example, in the past > decade scientists have developed the laser, an electronic appliance so powerful > that it can vaporize a bulldozer 2000 yards away, yet so precise that doctors > can use it to perform delicate operations to the human eyeball, provided they > remember to change the power setting from "Vaporize Bulldozer" to "Delicate." > > -=-=-=- > > surfin' the learnin' curve, > Jack > > > . > > On Tue, 9 Nov 2010 19:17:02 +0100, Inge <[log in to unmask]> > wrote: > >> Hi, someone there? Only two mails in one week. Is there a technical >> problem? >> /Inge > > --------------------------------------------------- > Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 15.0 > To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in > the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet > To temporarily halt or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) > To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest > Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives > Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 > ----------------------------------------------------- > ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please contact helpdesk at x2960 or [log in to unmask] ______________________________________________________________________ --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 15.0 To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 -----------------------------------------------------