Steptoes amp.

[pre65]

PS. Since starting this project I've been trying to figure out what the aether is made of, without success, so if anyone can enlighten me I would be most grateful. As far as I can work out it is something with no mass unless it is moving so when at rest it would seem not to exist at all, a concept which I just can't get my head around.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aether_(classical_element)

[Paul Barker]

thirty westbourne park
scarborough
why oh twelve four a tea

Regarding yours, it is clear that they are L.E. laminations. The only part is a E with elongated protrusions. It is assembled interleaved, flux has to jump across to the back of the alternate E to continue it's journey around (down the middle and back round each side. So like the E in an E.I. arrangement the central protrusion is double width as two fluxes combine to travel together.

I have some very small L.E. Nickel laminations and bobbins which would be used for very low level work like MC step up or microphone transformers. I am not sure what size they go up to but I imagine your transformers are as far as they go.

I have shown next to them normal E.I. Nickel laminations which you can see by the pictures together are shorter so that one end of the bobin requires the I to complete the flux path. When dealing with AC the E's are interleaved (starting at opposite end each time) and the gaps are then filled with an I. When DC is involved the E's go in from one end and the I's from another. Bud Purvine does this in blocks so that a whole block of E's are inserted from one end then another block from the other end in a ratio of 3 to 2 for example. He says there is a benefit to this. I haven't wound a transformer since he made this public knowledge.





This is what the ends of yours would look like. I haven't fully populated them just a few as a demonstration. As Mike says they can't handle DC.



From the next picture you will see that the L.E. lams are "scrapless" as are the much larger E.I. lams at the bottom. The middle size is shown again so you can see that those are not "scrapless". Clearly from the picture "scrapless" means you don't waste any of the sheet they are punched from.



Most modern laminations are scrapless.

There clearly is a property about the L.E. constrcution which at low level AC conditions is advantageous. All these things are done for a reason.

[Steptoe]

Hi Philip. Thanks for the reference but it doesn't really explain how a thing can exist when it has neither mass nor energy. Maybe I am seeking an answer to something which humans are incapable of understanding'but that needn't stop us from trying and if anyone can explain to me how light is transmitted through a vacuum as a wave if there is no medium to wave I would really like to hear it. Best wishes, Steptoe.

[Nick]

Hi Philip. Thanks for the reference but it doesn't really explain how a thing can exist when it has neither mass nor energy. Maybe I am seeking an answer to something which humans are incapable of understanding'but that needn't stop us from trying and if anyone can explain to me how light is transmitted through a vacuum as a wave if there is no medium to wave I would really like to hear it. Best wishes, Steptoe.

We have known since Michelson and Morley did their experiment 1877 that the "ether" does not exist. I think in general we understand that more than well enough now. The we may not be everyone, but we are certainly capable of understanding that. And as for the propagation of light, again, Thats well know and there are many who could explain that to you. As to if you could understand, thats another question, and not the one you asked.

I think the way I find it easy to understand is that light at some times behaves like a wave (refraction, interference), and some times like a particle (black body radiation). But both of those talk to how it behaves, not what it IS.

[Steptoe]

Dear Nick, you have put in a nutshell exactly what I was trying to say. If there is no aether. how can light be propagated as a wave? I have read some books about the propogation of light and radio waves but they never seem to address the basic question of what is waving. I assume that is either because it is too obvious, or is not known and if you could enlighten me I'd be very grateful. Yours sincerely, Steptoe.

[IslandPink]

A photon is a little packet of energy whizzing along, changing from electrostatic energy to magnetism and back about 5x10^14 times a second . ( 500 milion milion ) . Think of it like a vibrating fuzzy ball, doing its own thing as it flies through the vacuum .

[Ali Tait]

Sounds a bit like Dave.

[Ali Tait]

Sounds a bit like Dave.

[Nick]

Dear Nick, you have put in a nutshell exactly what I was trying to say. If there is no aether. how can light be propagated as a wave? I have read some books about the propogation of light and radio waves but they never seem to address the basic question of what is waving. I assume that is either because it is too obvious, or is not known and if you could enlighten me I'd be very grateful. Yours sincerely, Steptoe.

No, as Mark said, your mistake is assuming light is propagated as a wave, and then assuming you know what that would mean, and require. As I said, Light can behave like a wave. That doesnt mean it is in the same sense that a sound wave is, just that it has some of the properties of a wave.

If anything is said to wave in the propagation of light its the electrostatic and electromagnetic fields that its made up of. It consists of a electrostatic field and a electromagnetic one at 90 degrees to each other continually creating each other, as the ES field rises, the EM falls, as the ES field fails the EM one rises, energy is continuously swapped between one field and the other. And this continued recreation of itself happens a bit further along in space each time, so as this happens the place it happens moves at the speed of light.

Imagine a rotating screw thread, and a nut on that thread, as the screw turns, the nut moves along, but the screw is just rotating, not moving, the nut moves as if by magic. the dance of the two fields can be seen as the rotating thread of space time, and the light photon is drawn along by the rotating fields (well it IS the two fields). It has to move at the speed it does, it can't move any other speed, the pitch of spacetime is forcing it to do so.

[Steptoe]

Dear Nick, your description is most poetic and brings to mind a celestial orchestra performing a divine opera. Sadly though, for me it raises further questions, such as what is a magnetic field, what is an electrostatic field and what is the difference between a blue field and a red field?

I think I will just keep taking the black, foamy Irish medicine and leave the mysteries of the universe for you and Island Pink to worry about. With best wishes, Steptoe.

[Nick]

Dear Nick, your description is most poetic and brings to mind a celestial orchestra performing a divine opera. Sadly though, for me it raises further questions, such as what is a magnetic field, what is an electrostatic field and what is the difference between a blue field and a red field?

I think I will just keep taking the black, foamy Irish medicine and leave the mysteries of the universe for you and Island Pink to worry about. With best wishes, Steptoe.

Well, in the same way that light is both and neither a particle and a wave at the same time, magnetic and electrostatic field are the same thing viewed from different perspectives. But you can directly experience both aspects. The magnetic field is what holds your fridge magnet on the fridge, and the electrostatic field is what holds a balloon on the wall after rubbing it on your jumper.

Fields are not coloured, what we call red and blue is just light of different frequencies (wave view) or energy (particle view). Light is higher frequency (energy) than radio waves, and x rays are higher energy (frequency) than light. And so on.

[Mike H]

Aye they're all part of the same electromagnetic spectrum.

It dawned on me recently that 'colours' are only in our heads, they're just whatever labels our brains apply to certain wavelengths of light. Which are detected by different types of retina cells, each sensitive to a specific wavelength, if I remember correctly.

It then led me on to wonder how many other animals don't see the same colours that we do.

That's deep for a Satdee morning isn't it

[rowuk]

..........

It then led me on to wonder how many other animals don't see the same colours that we do.

But they do see the same colors - they just don't always know it yet!

[Mike H]

What I mean is, say OK they see the wavelength for yellow, but do they actually see it as yellow?

Told you it was deep.....

[Nick]

What I mean is, say OK they see the wavelength for yellow, but do they actually see it as yellow?

Told you it was deep.....

Hmm, not that deep, a better question is do you see the same as me when we both agree something is yellow.

Not sure how you can ask your question WRT a animal without a language to use to describe colours,

What does "see it as yellow" actually mean?

Or further what does "see", "it" and "as yellow" mean individually. You can't make sense of the combination until you have a meaning to the parts.