Tao of Lunacy

When I was young, my father used to bring home copies of all kinds of jokes. Being the resourceful young pack rat I was (tho I’ve gotten much better in recent years), I saved them for years. Once again find myself dipping into my stash (while I work on developing a "real" blog entry). I did a quick Google and it doesn’t appear this one has ever made it’s round on the internet, amazingly enough! I’ve edited just a wee bit (for grammar) but not much at all. (I originally posted this back in 2007 but thought it deserved a little bit of revival. I do not know who the author was.)

“You learn something new every day. For example, I was just reading a story of James Thurber’s as he recalls his grandmother’s belief electricity leaks out of an empty light socket if the switch has been left on. From this I gather - judging by the general context, and the fact that Thurber was a humorist - it doesn’t.

I was never taught electricity in school, nor was it often a topic of dinner table conversation between my parents. But, with reading Thurber here, and having to change a light bulb or tune in a transistor radio there, I have picked up a pretty sound working knowledge of electrical matters. it’s not very comprehensive, God knows - I still can’t fully understand why you can’t boil an egg on an electric guitar - but when I jot down a summary of what I have learned, I marvel that I’ve never been asked to write for the ELECTRICAL JOURNAL. For instance:

1. Most electricity is manufactured in power stations, where it is fed into wires which are then wound around large drums.

2. Some electricity, however, does not need to go along wires. That used in lightening, for example. and in portable radios. This kind of electricity is not generated, but is just lying about in the air, loose.

3. Electricity makes a low, humming noise. This noise may be pitched at different levels for use in doorbells, telephones and electric organs.

4. Electricity has to be grounded. That is to say, it has to be connected to the ground before it can function, except in the case of airplanes, which have separate arrangements.

5. Although electricity does not leak out of an empty light socket, said light socket is nevertheless live if you happen to shove your finger in it when the switch is on. So if it is not leaking, what else is it doing?

6. Electricity is made up of two ingredients, negative and positive. One ingredient travels along a wire covered with white plastic, and the other along a wire covered with black plastic. When these two meet together in what we call a plug, the different ingredients are mixed together to form electricity.

7. Electricity may be stored in batteries. Big batteries do not necessarily hold more electricity than small batteries. In big batteries the electricity is just shoveled in, while in small batteries (transistors) it is packed in flat.

Incurious people are content to take all this for granted. They press a switch, and the light comes on - this is all they know about the miracle in their homes. This has never been enough for me. I have to know how things work; and if I cannot find out from some technical handbook, then I combine such information as I already have with simple logic. Thus it is easy to deduce that the light switch controls a small clamp or vise which grips the wires very hard, so the electricity cannot get through. When the switch is flicked on, the vise is relaxed and the electricity travels to the light bulb where a bit of wire, called the element, is left bare. Here, for the first time, we can actually SEE the electricity. In the form of a spark. This spark is enlarged many hundreds of times by the curved bulb, which is made of magnifying glass.

Why, is our next question, do these light bulbs have a limited life? As any schoolboy knows, heat converts oxygen into moisture. When all the oxygen in the light bulb has become liquefied in this manner, it naturally quenches the electric spark.

I have not yet touched on the fuse wire. It has always amazed me an industry so enterprising in most respects - the invention of color electricity for use in traffic lights and the harnessing of negative electricity for refrigeration are two examples coming to mind - should still, 200 years after James Watt invented the electric kettle, be manufacturing fuse wire too thin. I pass on a hint for what it is worth. There is available from hardware shops a sturdy wire used mostly for making chicken runs, and this is far more durable than that stuff sold by electricians (who must, I appreciate, make a living.) By using chicken wire I now have a fuse box which - even when the spin drier burst into flames because of too much electricity having been fed into it - has for six months been as impregnable as the Bank of England.

Buy why have fuse wire at all? I completely understand that the fuse box is the junction at which the wires leading from the power station join, or fuse with, the wires belonging to the house, and that these two sets of wires have got to be connected somehow. But what is wrong with a simple knot?

In some respects, I reiterate, my knowledge is imperfect. I have not yet explored the field of neon signs - how do they make the electricity move about? And the pop-up toaster - how does it know when the toast is ready? What is the difference between electricity and electronics? Is electronics just the smart word to use now? How can an English computer speak French, as it requires a different voltage? Logic would answer these questions too, and many of a more technical nature, but the light over my desk has just gone out. A valve blown somewhere I expect.”