On Tue, 26 Nov 2013 11:49:22 -0800 (PST), TimR
wrote:

After bud's excellent explanation, we can see that Danny is almost right.

No, he's not.

The ground IS a parallel path for return, but most of the current will flow along the neutral wire.

He's talking about the return though the Earth (capital 'E'). That
just doesn't happen to any degree.

If there's not a neutral wire, then..........no don't go there. Yet.

Then you're screwed. Really bizarre things happen. BTDT.

Back to that single phase feeding the house from the transformer secondary for a second.

The center tap of that transformer is bonded to ground. That gives us a zero reference.

Google groupie's mess unfolded

But that technically is not necessary.

It *IS* necessary.

Your house would work fine without it.

Nope. You wouldn't have both 120 and 240 available.

Your oven would still "see" 240 volts and your lights 120.

Not without that center tap connected to the neutral, it wouldn't.

The problem is you might have a voltage difference between some of your equipment and ground.

I'm not sure what you're saying, now. You said the center-tapped
transformer wasn't necessary. If you mean that only the ground bond
from the center tap to ground was unnecessary, well, yeah, if you
don't mind electrocution.

But transformers are not limited to one tap.

OK... (gotta see where this is going...)

This secondary could easily be tapped at 60, 120, 180 and 240 volts referenced from tap to "low" terminal.

OK, but why

Do I now have 4-phase power?

Of course not. Starting with one phase you can only have one phase.
You can't make another. With two phases, you can make any number you
want, though.

Do I have four legs out of phase?

No, they're in phase, just like they are with the classical Edison
connection. That's what Trader can't get through his skull.