[sdiy] Alternating dead current voltage??

[Magnus Danielson]

From: karl dalen <dalenkarl at yahoo.se>
Subject: RE: [sdiy] Alternating dead current voltage??
Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 02:34:14 +0100 (CET)
Message-ID: <20041224013414.47275.qmail at web53503.mail.yahoo.com>

> No, no folks, my question was about the "voltage" part.
> 
> Asume i say:
> 
> "This AC voltage is not sinus."
> 
> That is: Alternating Current Voltage!
> Why do we smear together the Current word and the Voltage word?

The thing is that we stopped thinking about AC as standing for Alternating
Current and just think of it as a qualifier stating that we have shifting
polarities. So, when we say AC Voltage we intend to say voltage of shifting
polarity when we incorrectly is saying alternating current voltage, which is
wrong as you correctly have identified. This is a misuse of the language
really. It would be better to say Alternating Voltage and Direct Voltage
(altought Direct isn't a good word). Even better would be Alternating and
Non-Alternating Current/Voltage.

So, in the end, it is not a linguistic expert in action, rather a form of
broken slang which we understand and don't really contemplate over being wrong.
However, the linguistic expert would point out that this is how languagues
evolve, so there we are.

> If i instead say: This Alternating Voltage is not sinus !(AV) 

That's fine.

> > AC = Alternating Current
> > DC = Direct (not "dead") Current
> 
> Sorry, i ment direct offcourse.
> 
> Im sorry if not being clear,hovever my previous question 
> about current and no voltage has been discussed in the past
> and in a superconducting device many strange things are possible!

Superconductors have current but no voltage and are very cool to fool around
with. I want a superconductor to operate in +70 C, that could be very usefull!

Cheers,
Magnus