On Tuesday, November 26, 2013 2:49:22 PM UTC-5, TimR wrote:
After bud's excellent explanation, we can see that Danny is almost right.



And how exactly is that? He claimed that the earth is used as
the return path for delivering poser. That isn't anywhere close
to being "almost right".



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


Most of the current doesn't even have to flow on the neutral back to
the power plant. Look at a balanced 3 phase load. What does the world look like to the power plant?




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



Why not?




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. But that technically is not necessary. Your house would work fine without it. Your oven would still "see" 240 volts and your lights 120. The problem is you might have a voltage difference between some of your equipment and ground.



That is correct.



But transformers are not limited to one tap. This secondary could easily be tapped at 60, 120, 180 and 240 volts referenced from tap to "low" terminal.



Do I now have 4-phase power? Do I have four legs out of phase?

Now you've gone off the rails and I have no idea what point you're
trying to make. Somehow you're conflating too seperate discussions here.
One is the concept of the phases present in a split-phase service.
The other is whether the earth is a return path used for power
delivery. The two have nothing to do with each other.