I was talking about electronics with a friend recently and we got into some common myths.
“Leaving a charger plugged in wastes a lot of electricity, right?”
“Not really. It does use a tiny amount of standby power, but usually very little.”
“Okay, what about higher wattage? Higher wattage means better performance?”
“Not necessarily. It depends on the device and what you're actually using it for.”
Made me wonder, what other electronics myths have you heard that turned out to be completely wrong?

 

I was talking about electronics with a friend recently and we got into some common myths.
“Leaving a charger plugged in wastes a lot of electricity, right?”
“Not really. It does use a tiny amount of standby power, but usually very little.”
“Okay, what about higher wattage? Higher wattage means better performance?”
“Not necessarily. It depends on the device and what you're actually using it for.”
Made me wonder, what other electronics myths have you heard that turned out to be completely wrong?

That current in a wire is electrical energy.

 

All electronics runs on smoke!
When you let the smoke out, it stops.

 

All electronics runs on smoke!
When you let the smoke out, it stops.

That's not a myth, plenty of evidence it's true. Ever see semiconductor dopants exposed to air? They smoke.

The magic part is the myth.

 

When it comes to test instruments, if it works, it’s a Fluke. (I think that should be their advertising slogan)

 

Voltmeters measure voltage accurately.
Ammeters measure current accurately.

 

You can set a power supply to output constant voltage and constant current.

 

Electricity flows like water in pipes. It flows from + to -. Electricity is "magnetic" in that current in a wire will want to cause current to flow in a nearby wire. (transformer & inductor & motor theory) When you put electricity in a wire it pops out the other end.
My dad knew next to nothing about the subject, but he taught me this. By 3rd grade I was making things.
By 9th grade I was teaching the shop classes in electronics. (simple kit building and theory) By then I knew Electrons frow 'uphill' to the +. Try teaching that to farm boys.

I still teach water flow theory, (fully knowing it is wrong) when the audience knows nothing.

-----Dad had a 1940's version of this picture, from an army manual.-----
Put a magnet in the back pocket of the "Amp person" and it almost works.

 

You can set a power supply to output constant voltage and constant current.

And that seems to be one of the hardest to dispel. How many times have we had a poster here who just couldn’t let that one go?

 

One I heard from the early days of electricity use in the house was that you needed to put tape over the unused outlets so the electricity wouldn't leak out.

A common misconception often seen here is that volts (potential) can be at a single node without any reference point.
They have difficulty understanding that, unlike current, voltage is always between two nodes.

Another is that current can flow without a complete return path to the source.

 

I was talking about electronics with a friend recently and we got into some common myths.
“Leaving a charger plugged in wastes a lot of electricity, right?”
“Not really. It does use a tiny amount of standby power, but usually very little.”
“Okay, what about higher wattage? Higher wattage means better performance?”
“Not necessarily. It depends on the device and what you're actually using it for.”
Made me wonder, what other electronics myths have you heard that turned out to be completely wrong?

Perhaps the biggest myth was that magnetic fields are a distinct real "thing", that one came as an eye opener.

 

Perhaps the biggest myth was that magnetic fields are a distinct real "thing"

Well they do a lot of interesting stuff if they are an imaginary "thing".
Or are you referring to the observation that a magnetic field is just the relativistic effect of a moving electric field?

 

Well they do a lot of interesting stuff if they are an imaginary "thing".
Or are you referring to the observation that a magnetic field is just the relativistic effect of a moving electric field?

Yes, that's what I'm referring to, I was stunned when I first began to understand it, the magnetic field around a current carrying conductor.

 

Just about everything that convention teaches us about electricity is mythology.

 

One I heard from the early days of electricity use in the house was that you needed to put tape over the unused outlets so the electricity wouldn't leak out.

A common misconception often seen here is that volts (potential) can be at a single node without any reference point.
They have difficulty understanding that, unlike current, voltage is always between two nodes.

Another is that current can flow without a complete return path to the source.

Continuous steady state current.

 

Just about everything that convention teaches us about electricity is mythology.

Such as....

 

Continuous steady state current.

?

 

I was stunned when I first began to understand it, the magnetic field around a current carrying conductor.

But it gets interesting when you try to explain an EM wave traveling through space as per Maxwell's equations.
And why do physicists search for a magnetic monopole, if a magnetic field is not real?

 

It's pretty deep, seems the field actually is real, not just apparent (which is what I kind of thought). I'd like to study it more, get a handle on the tensor representation of the thing which it seems is powerful and elegant.

 

?

Just that you need a closed loop circuit for continuous steady state current. You have have transient currents on a open wire from EM field effects.