subject: Imagine Your Home Or Office Without Heat & Air Conditioning [print this page] Its Bill Gates vision of the wide wide worldIts Bill Gates vision of the wide wide world. Interconnected. Electronic. Yet think for a moment how all of this would come to a grinding halt if not for electrical power - ac and dc, that we all take for granted. Yet imagine a brown out or power failure on a big ongoing scale. Sort of like one giant cataclysm
A high resistance short is another type of short circuit. Typically , this fault occurs inside an appliance that through wear of breakage , a part of the circuit board touches a metal part- for example the metal housing or a motor part. Thus a secondary path is formed for current flow. This type of short is also called a "ground" because current is diverted out of the circuit. The ground does not lead to earth , however but to a metal part of the appliance - In our modern era we are protected from realizing that ultimately our nutrition comes from the earth.
Many people actually think that the origin of their foodstuffs is their local supermarket and that of course foods come in cans and plastic sealed packages. It might shock these princesses to know otherwise. None of us - or few- ever think of the origin of our meals - A short circuit is a fault that exists when there is a path for current flow other than the normal path through the appliance. For example in a room heater , a short circuit could occur because of wear or broken insulation. Two conductors in a line cord could touch resulting in high current flow that can cause a fuse or circuit breaker to "blow". That is other than the power company to whom we pay our monthly utility bills to.
The current and electrical power that is delivered over the lines to our homes and offices is delivered directly from the dynamos of your local power utilities. The final necessary element in any electrical or power circuit is a means of controlling the flow of energy. Control is provided by a switch, which can interrupt or restore current flow as desired by the user or home owner.
Three terms that all are common to electrical appliances that we should all be familiar with as they are an integral part of any electrical system and electrical circuits which power the unspoken servants of our lives.
Switches in home and office factory floor appliances and robots control current flow by introducing a high resistance ( air or electronic gap) to start current flowing or not flowing at any point in time. Some appliances ( electric grills for example) have no separate switch. The appliance is turned on and generally inserting or removing the plug into the socket. Any device ( a lamp , a radio or washing machine) , that uses electrical energy to perform some work is a load. The load , or loads , unlike conductors, offer considerable resistance to current flow. Thus high electrical resistance makes it possible for any electronic or electrical appliance to convert electrical energy to another form of energy - light sound or mechanical movement. All to provide work and to be a personal servant to you and your family at home or at your office or factory floor. Imagine the stifling heat in the summer with an air-conditioning failure or a home of frozen pipes in a cold January Northern Minnesota or Canadian winter - if your furnace or air conditioning system did not work. Try not paying your hydro or electrical utility power bill on time and see how long you could function in our modern world. People do not even look for jobs in the paper anymore - they use Craigs List online or Kijiji - It would be sheer dark without light bulbs or florescent lighting. It would be back to coal oil lamps? How would you even call to work to work to announce that you would not be attending to work that day if your land-line phone would not work or your cell phone was not charged?
