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Electromagnetic Emission Art
mr_lithic writes "The artist Richard Box has used the electromagnetic field generated by overhead transmission cables to power 1300 fluorescent lightbulbs positioned underneath. Some pictures available.
Professor Denis Harshaw at Bristol University explains "There's an interactive element to all this, too, for those who go to the site itself. 'You affect the lights by your proximity', explains Richard Box, 'because you're a much better conductor than a glass tube. And there's sound as well as light - a crackling that corresponds to the flashing of the lights. There's a certain smell too, and your hair stands slightly on end.'"
Sounds cool and it is on until February 29th. Directons here."
Does arrangements like that actually "steal" any power from the powerlines, or would it be lost anyway if it was just air instead of neon tubes?
Come one now, this has already been throughly answered. Why was he modded intereseting?
Think about it this way: If you have your car running at 3000rpm in neutral, does it use the same amount of fuel as the same car pulling a boat up a hill running at 3000rpm?
Of course not!
When radio transmitters transmit, they do see a 'load' imposed by the air and surrounding objects. A misconfigured antenna can burn out a transmitter essentially because it loads the radio too much (well it creates SWR, etc).
A transmitter without an antenna cannot impart its full power into the air, just as there is no 'wasted' energy by having an unconnected battery. You can think of antennas as ways to connect something to the air (bad analogy though).
Well, powerlines are pretty simliar to a long wire antenna....
The lights in the article do place an extra load on the powerlines. Well, the neat thing about electricity is that electric current, electric fields, and magnetic fields are all related (Mawell's Law, etc).
You don't actually need wires to carry electricity (its just a heck of a lot easier in practice).
Why is slashdot all british central? I'm an american you insensitive clod. there are places outside britin.