HOW MUCH DO WE REALLY KNOW ABOUT ELECTRICITY
AUTHOR James Thurber wrote about a nervous aunt who went about her home ensuring that all the light fittings had bulbs in them, so the electricity didn’t leak out.
We may chuckle about that, but do we really know much about electricity? We use it all the time for lighting, cooking, charging our “devices,” doing the laundry and running the vacuum cleaner.
When I was a child many people got “car sick”. My parents solved the problem by attaching a short chain to the back bumper of the car to dissipate the build-up of static electricity. We don’t hear much about car sickness these days and I haven’t seen a static chain on a car for many years. What changed?
Are cars now made of so much plastic that they don’t conduct electricity? If so, why can you generate static electricity by rubbing a plastic comb on a woollen jersey?
Telephones used to work by copper wires. Now we are switching over to fibre optics, which are apparently extremely fine glass fibres. Does this mean we can now transmit electricity through glass?
Getting back to Thurber’s nervous aunt, I read a list of electricity-saving hints recently and one if them said: “Unplug all chargers when not in use.” Does this mean the aunt was right and electricity leaks out when my toothbrush is not connected?
A quick count tells me I have at least eight chargers at various points around my house. Should I unplug each one when it’s not connected to the relevant device? Would it be the same if I simply turned off the switch? I grew up in a home where we generated our own electricity and stored it in a bank of batteries.
The house lights used 32 volts of DC electricity. After many years Eskom’s power line reached the farm and we switched over the 220 volt AC power supply. We didn’t need to change the wiring because apparently 32 volt electricity uses far thicker cables than the more powerful 220 volt stuff, so we had a very sturdy wiring system.
I have often wondered why a bigger voltage needs a thinner wire. I’m perfectly relaxed about electricity and I’m happy to use it all day long. But I haven’t a clue what it is. Last Laugh A lawyer and an engineer were relaxing on the beach in front of a luxury Durban hotel. “I’m here because my house in Sea Point burnt down and the insurance company paid me R20 million,” said the lawyer. “What a coincidence,” said the engineer, “I’m here because my house in Constantia was destroyed by a flood and the insurance company paid me R25m.” After a long silence the lawyer asked: “How do you start a flood?”