You’re correct, this is more of a theoretical exercise as opposed to a practical real world condition. If we used two-100 watt light bulbs in the example even those are not identical.
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Ah. What?
Debates by who, and smoking what? How do these debates rate on objective criteria?
And in fact, we can demonstrate that effect in the real world. Every so often exactly this situation happens in real world homes when a neutral gets disconnected by the POCO, or because of a double lug, or whatever.
What amazes me is what continues to work, but badly, with flickering lights and odd effects. If the HO does not take action they can run like this for months until one day they turn on a space heater or whatever and create too great an imbalance. Then all their electronics blow out, and they post on NextDoor ™ from the a Library computer seeking help. I’m making zero of this up.
That happened to me several years ago. The neutral became disconnected at the pole, and every time the washing machine was running, all of our lights would flicker in tandem with the agitator.
I started looking at the panel neutrals, opening up receptacle boxes, etc, but couldnt figure it out. About a week later, I looked up at the pole behind our yard, and it was disconnected.
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I have seen it with a corroded neutral in an exterior disconnect box.
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Fool. As in any science where the process cannot be visually observed, we depend on theoretical concepts; and especially in power generation and distribution. Many of these concepts are still hotly debated, more than 100 years after the introduction of consumer electronics. There is still debate on whether electrical energy moves in waves, or as particles. And there is even scientific debate as to the direction of current flow.
That’s the pot callin’ the kettle black! No debate.
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Around here where there are public water systems neutrals can fail and go unnoticed for a very long time because the neutral current will return on the metal water pipe electrode to the neighbors house through the GEC connections and back to the transformer.
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That was probably it, then. It was a 50’s home with copper water lines
Hotly debated perhaps, by hotheads.
Unfortunately God did not write (or at least Reveal) a physics manual for His creation. He left it all for His people to Figure Out. And it turns out to be Messy. Take quantum physics for example: it’s kinda weird and while the science world continues to hotly debate the fine points, what’s known is plenty good for the business world to make tens of billions of products using the theory (e.g. blue lasers, flash memory, etc).
Conspiracy theorists take something on which there is broad agreement, on which objective experiments by independent experts come to the same conclusion, and find some whacko searching for clicks who says different. A person can come to believe almost anything by that method, making it an utterly great way to create churn, but a terrible way to actually learn anything solid and reliable. To take the next step down the rabbit hole after that, take some group, label that group, then start denigrating them – create a tribalism with your tribe at the top.
Some advice for you David: don’t use electricity in your tribe. It’s dangerous and not well enough understood. And, it’s the pathway to evil, just look at the Internet – remove electricity from your life to stay safe – and watch out for those election scammers who take over smoke alarms for government surveillance.
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Most dangerous scenario is fire…here is a picture of double tapped neutrals with one not making good contact…as you can see one wire is burnt…
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1: Double tapped neutrals, 2 conductors under one lug, can expand and contract just enough to where the conductor connections becomes loose. As you understand, loose circuit connections can overheat causing arcing and inevitably over time fire.](Double Lugged Neutral Wires - YouTube)
2: Prevents doubled lugged circuits from being isolated.
We are not there to measure torque specifications, so lets bypass that conversation.
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Resurrection of this old discussion is warranted. The comments about the two phase legs being out of phase with each other are wrong. In a single-phase system the two legs are not 180°out of phase with each other. Single means one. There is only one phase. There is only one sine wave. There is nothing to be out of phase with.
Several people in this discussion have mentioned that the two legs are 180° out of phase with each other. That is unequivocally wrong.
There is a single secondary coil on the transformer and the windings are all in the same direction. It is physically impossible for the two legs to be 180° out of phase with each other.
The confusion probably comes from the way Voltage is usually graphically depicted with one leg being depicted above a zero Voltage line and the other being depicted as being below the zero Voltage center line. That is often misinterpreted as being opposite phasing, which of course it is not.
On the other hand, Voltage and current can be out of phase with each other, but that has nothing to do with there being two legs. Reactive circuits cause Voltage and current to be out of phase with each other, but never by 180°. The relationship between Voltage and current is called power factor. Ideally, PF is one, or unity. As a practical matter, however, it usually ranges somewhere between 0.8 and 1.0. Anything below 0.8 can cause problems with performance, particularly of reactive loads.
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