Re: Positive earth and other uplifting experiences

[Simon Favre <simon@domain.elided>]

I was wondering if anybody else agreed with me on this. I still maintain
that the supposed "theoretical advantages" of positive ground sit right
next to pulling a sword from a stone among British myths. As an Electrical
Engineer, I say that the principle of Duality applies. This says that a
flow of electrons in one direction is equivalent to a flow of theoretical
positive charges in the opposite direction. A passive component like a
wire or a car body can't possibly know the difference. All that happens
if you reverse the battery is that electrons flow the opposite direction.
The same number of electrons flow in the wires and the car body, regardless
of the direction. The electrons have to enter the car body at one point
and leave it at another. Since everything else in the world that ran on
DC was going negative ground, cars had to follow suit. Once solid state
electronics started to show up in cars, negative ground was definitely the
most cost-effective and reasonable way to go. Right, only the British.
Maybe they were just steamed at the fact that it was a Colonial who first
described what we now call "conventional current" flowing from + to -. His
name? Benjamin Franklin.

C.M. Smith wrote:

> Lucas/Carello are known as the Prince of (insert expletive of your choice
>here) Darkness for a reason. Only the British could possibly think a
>positive earth is a good idea, and in a wet country to boot! Somebody
>somewhere must've thought that because electrons "flow" from negative to
>positive that a positive earth would capture all those stray electrons and
>harness their latent power. Since latent power was all you could get out
>of British cars of the period, it must've worked. Rust anyone? (Yeah, I'm
>British, let the flames begin I have my brolly for protection)

------------------------------