Michael Zier wrote:
> Am Wed, 02 Apr 2008 10:45:08 +0100 schrieb Invisible:
> 
>> volition anyway; it's not like it requires a *force* to drive them or
>> anything...
> 
> Well, strictly spoken no. Newtons first law applies to electrons too... 

Uhhh.... No, not really. :-)  Indeed, electrons aren't even guaranteed 
to move forward in time, let alone in a smooth straight line.

Oh, I guess maybe Newton's laws apply as long as there are no virtual 
exchange particles around. And the electron doesn't spontaneously turn 
into a couple of photons and back.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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Stephen wrote:
> 
> You forgot to mention RMS or peak to peak watts.

No, I didn't. It's clear the RMS won't be mentioned. I was more worried 
if they'll mention more than 2,5W total output, since it's pretty much 
impossible (from one USB-connector you can get 500mA of 5V max.).

-- 
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
    http://www.zbxt.net
       aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid

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Michael Zier wrote:
> Well, as long as you know which one must be on your account... ;)

I have a book on accounting software that has a page designed to be torn 
out that says

"You must memorize this:
  Account     Credit     Debit
  Assets      Decrease   Increase
  Expense     Decrease   Increase
  Libilities  Increase   Decrease
     ....
-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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Stephen wrote:
> the "bank's" point of view. Go figure why that is useful :)

Because it's the bank doing double-entry bookkeeping, not you. :-)

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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Invisible wrote:

> Interesting. I've never seen any car where turning the ignition 
> *doesn't* disable all the other electrics in the system [including the 
> headlights].

IME disabling all electric devices on startup is still very common 
practice, simply because it's a wise thing to do (it makes the voltage 
to drop a little bit less than with having them enabled).

> As I understand it, turning the starter motor requires a massive amount 
> of current, and is essentially the *only* reason a car has such a 
> whopping great battery in the first place. (Certainly it's not necessary 
> just to run the spark plugs... or even the headlights...)

Yes. Another reasons for whopping great battery would be a 

stereos, that can be used while the engine ain't running.

-- 
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
    http://www.zbxt.net
       aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid

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Invisible wrote:
> The part I can't figure out is how you do the accounts of a company, and 
> they end up with more money than they started out with, even though it 
> hasn't apparently "come" from anywhere... Accounting is weird!

It comes from profits.  Easy enough.

What *I* don't understand is how you do accounting for 
fractional-reserve banking. Except to the extent that you're actually 
only creating promises in return for promises.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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Invisible wrote:
> Apparently, all I have to do is generate a sufficiently low-frequency 
> wave, with V and I sufficiently far out of phase, and we arrive at an 
> impossible situation. I could have a system with an arbitrarily large 
> current passing through it, for an arbitrarily long time, despite the 
> entire system having zero potential difference.

Yes. But the system would have to be arbitrarily large. :-)  That's what 
people call "ground potential".

It has to be at least large enough to hold one wave.

> Obviously, electrons don't just move around for the hell of it. 

Actually, at the quantum level, yeah, they do. That's why you can't make 
abitrarily *small* transistors.

> The equations might make perfect sense in the presence of complex 
> numbers, but that doesn't mean they match the real world.

But they do. All current is measured in complex numbers. All the 
weirdness of quantum mechanics is caused by probabilities that are 
complex numbers.  What's the probability of this electron emitting a 
photon?  0.3 + sqrt(-1.4).

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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Invisible wrote:
> 
> Similarly, a capacitor can store charge such that when you turn off your 
> external current source, the capacitor is still presenting a voltage to 
> the system, and hence current is still flowing. There is no mystery in 
> that. The mystery is in saying that there is actually "no voltage", and 
> the current is just magically flowing all by itself.
> 

You can think of external resistor to help. Let's say you'd have a 
capacitor and a resistor connected in serial. Connect a voltage meter to 
the capacitor (in parallel) and connect this set to a battery. You'll 
see how the voltage starts to increase, starting from 0. Right?

The thing is, if you'll connect the capacitor without the resistor, what 
happens is actually *exactly the same*. The increase of the voltage is 
just so fast that you'll have no chance to actually follow it, so the 
full voltage just seems to appear, even though it has raised with (very 
little amount of) time.

-- 
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
    http://www.zbxt.net
       aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid

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>> Obviously, electrons don't just move around for the hell of it. 
> 
> Actually, at the quantum level, yeah, they do. That's why you can't make 
> abitrarily *small* transistors.

True. But at the macroscopic level, they don't. Nothing does.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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On Wed, 02 Apr 2008 18:19:01 +0300, Eero Ahonen
<aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid> wrote:

>Stephen wrote:
>> 
>> You forgot to mention RMS or peak to peak watts.
>
>No, I didn't. It's clear the RMS won't be mentioned. I was more worried 
>if they'll mention more than 2,5W total output, since it's pretty much 
>impossible (from one USB-connector you can get 500mA of 5V max.).

Sorry it was badly phrased, I was really speaking to Andrew.
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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