General > General Technical Chat
"Veritasium" (YT) - "The Big Misconception About Electricity" ?
TimFox:
I find it important to be aware of ones own ignorance, and therefore attempt to learn more when faced with a novel situation.
bsfeechannel:
--- Quote from: TimFox on April 07, 2022, 05:55:33 pm ---That's right, but we can avoid stupidity.
--- End quote ---
And I would add that the ignorant engineer is a liability. The stupid engineer, a menace.
--- Quote from: penfold on April 07, 2022, 03:21:19 pm ---Ignorance is however very powerful when used well, nobody progressed any greater understanding by reading a textbook and being satisfied with the answer. Ignorance in others is also very revealing of a teacher's abilities and often demonstrates weaknesses in the pedagogical representation of concepts.
--- End quote ---
The teacher is not the culprit if the student doesn't want to learn. In the specific case of the use of complex numbers in engineering, there's nothing more pedagogical than Steinmetz paper entitled "Complex Quantities And Their Use in Electrical Engineer". The explanation is so clear that any high-schooler can understand. At least I and my colleagues did at the time. And if you want to ascribe any physical significance to the complex numbers, just look around you. The ubiquitous and affordable distribution of energy wouldn't be possible without the help of its application to engineering. But If you want to go down the rabbit hole of the meaning of numbers, whatever numbers, just start asking what is so two about two that makes it a two and not a three, or a four? That has nothing to do with engineering itself. And if you don't know how to answer those questions, you cannot possibly advocate for the eradication of the use of the number two from engineering.
penfold:
--- Quote from: bsfeechannel on April 07, 2022, 07:18:53 pm ---
--- Quote from: penfold on April 07, 2022, 03:21:19 pm ---Ignorance is however very powerful when used well, nobody progressed any greater understanding by reading a textbook and being satisfied with the answer. Ignorance in others is also very revealing of a teacher's abilities and often demonstrates weaknesses in the pedagogical representation of concepts.
--- End quote ---
The teacher is not the culprit if the student doesn't want to learn.
--- End quote ---
It of course isn't intrinsically the fault of the teacher if the student enters the lecture theatre without any desire of paying attention or learn. Modern academic institutions are however subject to increasing financial pressures and must maintain a competitive edge both in their academic standing, that of their facilities, and all the stuff that contributes to that all-important world ranking. So that student with the intent of not engaging isn't an easy expulsion (financial reasons) and the pass standard of exams cannot be lowered... quality and flexibility of teaching is the most flexible constraint. And naturally, the quality of teaching isn't a universal standard, lecturing to a large audience is not an easy thing to do, and it's no surprise that's there are only a handful of truly great ones and that many people have remarked that they have found some concepts much easier to understand after seeing it presented slightly differently. It is also obviously a relatively personal taste of what levels of details a particular student needs to grasp a topic, but there are some truly awful lecturers out there.
--- Quote from: bsfeechannel on April 07, 2022, 07:18:53 pm ---[...] And if you want to ascribe any physical significance to the complex numbers, just look around you. The ubiquitous and affordable distribution of energy wouldn't be possible without the help of its application to engineering.
--- End quote ---
Really? How do complex numbers make energy affordable? Given that a lot of the challenges in the development of modern distribution systems have been from the lack of consideration beyond a first harmonic approximation, I'd have assumed the simplistic complex phasor representation has increased cost. Joking aside, modern systems are increasingly more non-linear, especially in RF and power conversion, phasors and a single imaginary number just don't give a clear picture. Take the original topic of this forum, for instance: there's be no direct analytical solutions proposed; a transmission line solution that omits the important initial propagation delay; or a computationally intense FDTD solution; (it is also possible to do some circuit rearrangements on a lumped x-line to get the propagation delay but in simple imaginary quantities the equivalent components become an ungodly order of polynomial). Just maybe there's a different/better/more-general transform to be found, or maybe it already has, but maybe listening to why some people don't even get along with Steinmetzian phasors may just help teachers and academics pick up the slack.
--- Quote from: bsfeechannel on April 07, 2022, 07:18:53 pm ---But If you want to go down the rabbit hole of the meaning of numbers, whatever numbers, just start asking what is so two about two that makes it a two and not a three, or a four? That has nothing to do with engineering itself. And if you don't know how to answer those questions, you cannot possibly advocate for the eradication of the use of the number two from engineering.
--- End quote ---
So, hypothetically, just as an example, I could advocate for their eradication if I did know why two wasn't three? Yeah, the philosophy of numbers, before saying it has nothing to do with engineering... perhaps have a little think first, just in case there's one little application area you've not considered.
bsfeechannel:
--- Quote from: penfold on April 07, 2022, 11:05:48 pm ---How do complex numbers make energy affordable?
--- End quote ---
Have fun.
penfold:
--- Quote from: bsfeechannel on April 08, 2022, 01:45:39 am ---
--- Quote from: penfold on April 07, 2022, 11:05:48 pm ---How do complex numbers make energy affordable?
--- End quote ---
[...]
Have fun.
--- End quote ---
"Do" is the present tense, the content of those videos is more about the early days, and the nature of electrical supply and consumption has changed somewhat since then. Anything to suggest that it is still the optimum solution?
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