How to build an ideal transformer!

[paul cotter]

And simulation with unrealistic parameters further divorces these ideas from reality.

[SteveThackery]

But whenever a neon bulb, styled spark gap can produce overwhelming negative watts (greater than its positively consumptive wattage), that's encouraging.

(my bold)

No it isn't!!  Because it has never happened. 

[TimFox]

But whenever a neon bulb, styled spark gap can produce overwhelming negative watts (greater than its positively consumptive wattage), that's encouraging.

No it isn't!! Because it has never happened. 

The Federal Arc I described outputs substantially less power than the power applied to it from the external power source.
“Federal” refers to the Federal Radio Co., predecessor of ITT, International Telephone and Telegraph Co.

[SteveThackery]

Chet: what are "negative watts"?

[paul cotter]

I can help with that, Steve. Negative watts are akin to negative apples or negative oranges. Have you not gone to a supermarket and bought a box of negative oranges?, for a negative price. If you haven't you need to get out and about more often, Steve.

[SteveThackery]

I can help with that, Steve. Negative watts are akin to negative apples or negative oranges. Have you not gone to a supermarket and bought a box of negative oranges?, for a negative price. If you haven't you need to get out and about more often, Steve.

Ah, I should have known! 

Negative pork pies are fantastic things: the more you eat, the thinner you get.    😄

[paul cotter]

And spending negative money(on the box of negative oranges) increases your bank balance.

[TimFox]

And spending negative money(on the box of negative oranges) increases your bank balance.

Classical economics and modern accountancy tell us that spending negative money by taking out a loan does increase your bank balance.
When calculating the ratio between two monetary values, always use the factor "10" to calculate dB, since money is power.

[Andy Chee]

Chet: what are "negative watts"?

It’s not the operating definition that Chet is using, but it’s still worthwhile terminology that has legitimate use in energy accounting, rather than energy physics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negawatt_market

[Electrodynamic]

As a HV guy my nemesis is negative resistance which seems absurd.

The bean counters claim something like a HV spark gap exhibits negative resistance which I see as positive conductance. It's similar to the overunity folks talking about negative electricity or negative watts lol. Oh look, when I plot this on a graph the line slopes downward, any line sloping downward has a negative slope therefore it's negative resistance. No, it's a physical change in the resistance of the path of the conducting free electron current moving from (-) to (+) and not this bs that the supposed current could move from (+) to (-) in a solid conductor proven false decades ago. The only way the current could move from (+) to (-) is if the protons in the atoms of the copper conductor were flowing like water which is complete nonsense imo.

I look at the physical reality not some bs mathematical construct. Even AI had an issue until I corrected it, "you are entirely correct, and I need to be more precise here: mathematically and physically, static resistance and static conductance are indeed inverses or opposites... no shit. So in HV applications my only concern is conductance relating to a wide range of phenomena relating to corona effects dependent on relative humidity which are variable. In fact, the majority of HV "current" moves within the water vapor absorbed and on the surface of a material not the resistance of the material itself in the real world.

In any case, I find the notion of "negative resistance" to be absurd. It's the same shit as negative electricity and negative watts imo.

[paul cotter]

Resistance versus conductance, impedance versus admittance- these are RECIPROCAL functions, not inverses or opposites.

Btw, where's Chet, I'm getting bored

[TimFox]

Negative resistance systems, including arc discharges, also show negative conductance.  The relevant variable is incremental resistance, the derivative dV/dI, and its reciprocal.
Since impedance is complex, negative values are not defined, although the real or imaginary component can be positive or negative.  Due to complex algebra, if the reactance is negative (capacitive), the susceptance will be positive (still capacitive).  Admittance is the reciprocal of impedance (both complex).
I have often found negative conductance to be useful in designing oscillators (or avoiding oscillation).

[SteveThackery]

Resistance versus conductance, impedance versus admittance- these are RECIPROCAL functions, not inverses or opposites.

Yep. Negative resistance is just a convenient term for the phenomenon where the current in a device or circuit gets less when the voltage increases. That's all.

As @paul cotter says, conductance is not minus ohms, or negative ohms; conductance is 1 divided by ohms.

G = 0 - R  👎

G = 1/R  👍

I think the confusion between the reciprocal of something and the negative of something is at the heart* of Chet's confusion.

---
*(One of the things, I should say; Chet seems to be confused about lots of things.)

[TimFox]

The term “inverse” is often used, for example, as the relation between the functions sin(x) and arcsin(x).  To confuse things, arcsin(x) is often denoted sin^-1(x).

[SteveThackery]

The term “inverse” is often used, for example, as the relation between the functions sin(x) and arcsin(x).  To confuse things, arcsin(x) is often denoted sin^-1(x).

Yes, I had to look up the difference between the inverse and the reciprocal. At a superficial level they seem to be the same thing, but actually inverse is a more general term for "the thing that undoes an operation". It could be an additive inverse, a multiplicative inverse, an inverse function or an inverse matrix.

The reciprocal of something is the multiplicative inverse, or 1/x.  Well, you learn summat new every day!

[TimFox]

Yes, in formal algebra, the reciprocal is the “multiplicative inverse” and the negative is the “additive inverse”, etc in that context, 1 is the multiplicative identity and 0 is the additive identity, which are elements of the set in question.

[SteveThackery]

@Chet: I repeat: what are negative watts? You speak of them often.

[TimFox]

@Chet: I repeat: what are negative watts? You speak of them often.

I hate to encourage Chet, but to be fair in a system connection between, say, a solar power system on your property and a power feed from the local utility, accounting for power flow for billing would include negative power as power supplied by you and positive power supplied from the utility, where your bill is proportional to the difference (or sum, if you treat one as negative).  No over-unity nonsense is implied therefrom.

[paul cotter]

In power generation the terms used are import and export, whether watts or vars. Import is power or vars coming in from the grid and export is power or vars going to the grid.

[SteveThackery]

I hate to encourage Chet, but to be fair in a system connection between, say, a solar power system on your property and a power feed from the local utility, accounting for power flow for billing would include negative power as power supplied by you and positive power supplied from the utility, where your bill is proportional to the difference (or sum, if you treat one as negative).  No over-unity nonsense is implied therefrom.

That's a totally fair comment, but of course it's just an accounting convenience. In terms of the physics, which is what I'm interested in, there are no negative watts (unless Chet can show otherwise, of course).

[Chet]

Back to my persistent rant about negative-resistance circuits requiring external power:
Early in the 20th century, a practical source of high-power RF was the “Federal Arc” (q.v.) that was an improvement on the original Poulsen arc, using an arc discharge stabilized by a strong magnetic field.
When connected to a resonant circuit, the negative resistance resulted in a high-power oscillator.
For Morse CW transmission, the stabilization was too slow to permit keying of the external power, so FSK was used by switching a capacitor in and out of the resonant tank circuit.
It was made obsolete by the Alexandersson alternator followed by the vacuum tube.
Amusingly, the first cyclotron particle accelerator used the magnetic armature from a Federal Arc, found in a Palo Alto area scrapyard.

Let's target what's going on here ...
Is it external power, external voltage, or external current, or external capacitance, or external resistance, or external inductance, or external frequency? Which is it that's required from outside of the circuit?

[Chet]

Resistance versus conductance, impedance versus admittance- these are RECIPROCAL functions, not inverses or opposites.

Yep. Negative resistance is just a convenient term for the phenomenon where the current in a device or circuit gets less when the voltage increases. That's all.

As @paul cotter says, conductance is not minus ohms, or negative ohms; conductance is 1 divided by ohms.

G = 0 - R  👎

G = 1/R  👍

I think the confusion between the reciprocal of something and the negative of something is at the heart* of Chet's confusion.

---
*(One of the things, I should say; Chet seems to be confused about lots of things.)

Then, maybe I should switch to "negative watts"? Is that any clearer?

[Chet]

In power generation the terms used are import and export, whether watts or vars. Import is power or vars coming in from the grid and export is power or vars going to the grid.

When I did my accounting exercise, I looked at every single component to assess whether its power was negative or positive to suggest that either the power was entering or exiting that singular component. Then, I'd do a sub-tally to add up all of the negatives and all of the positives and then I'd do a grand total.

I made a book about it. In the beginning, it was my biggest seller on Amazon. But people didn't know that I also give away on my website just about every book for sale on Amazon.

Mho's Law Justifies Free Energy - Figures, Vol. 2 of 2: How to generate an endless supply of reactive power by emulating the behavior of spark gaps.

https://vinyasi.info/mhoslaw/Patents/second%20attempt/draft%203/figures_v2.pdf

[Chet]

@Chet: I repeat: what are negative watts? You speak of them often.

power leaving whatever is exhibiting this measurement

[Chet]

Resistance versus conductance, impedance versus admittance- these are RECIPROCAL functions, not inverses or opposites.

Yep. Negative resistance is just a convenient term for the phenomenon where the current in a device or circuit gets less when the voltage increases. That's all.

As @paul cotter says, conductance is not minus ohms, or negative ohms; conductance is 1 divided by ohms.

G = 0 - R  👎

G = 1/R  👍

I think the confusion between the reciprocal of something and the negative of something is at the heart* of Chet's confusion.

---
*(One of the things, I should say; Chet seems to be confused about lots of things.)

Would you then say that the negative half-phase of an A/C cycle is less than zero? That's misleading since it could suggest that its amplitude is of no consequence when it is merely inverted from the positive half-cycle with an equal but opposite amplitude.