On Tuesday, 24 April 2018 17:33:30 UTC+1, Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp wrote:
On Tue, 24 Apr 2018 02:48:57 -0700 (PDT), whisky-dave
wrote:

On Monday, 23 April 2018 19:47:56 UTC+1, Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp wrote:
On Mon, 23 Apr 2018 17:23:49 +0100, John Rumm
wrote:

On 17/04/2018 20:27, Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp wrote:
On Tue, 17 Apr 2018 08:44:05 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

On 17/04/18 07:49, charles wrote:
In article ,
Bill Wright wrote:
"A live wire is a wire with current flowing through it.

a live wire is still live when there is no load on the circuit.

Well exactly...

No,
With no load it is neither alive nor dead.

Your statement does not agree with the accepted use of the term "live"
in the UK wiring regs.

(that's aside from being nonsense at pretty much any level).

Why?

You come across a cable, pink, yellow, brown, blue, whatever.

Strange colour for copper to come in or are yuo refering to the insulation covering the conductors ?


Until you assign an indicator, it is neither alive nor dead.

It is what it is, like a tree in a forest it still exists even if you aren't there to see it.


The wiring regs do not necessarily apply. It might be part of an
aircraft infrastructure for instance,

It could just be on the end of the reel used as a cat toy.

in which case the wiring regs
have no relevance anyway.

Wiring regs only aply if the cable is wired up, there are no wiring regs for cable sitting on a shelf.

Yet until "measured" the cable will still
not be dead, or alive of course.

Most have set up and understanding of what is meant by dead or alive some think it's Pete Burns which can be a result of hanging on to live cable if your name is pete.

Ypou can find out if a cable is dead or alive by inserting it into you urethra, and this advice goes nicely with the subject of this thread :-D

That would constitute a measurement. The act of doing this would make
the cable live, or dead.

No it would not.




Unless you can prove otherwise :-)


Try it and let us know.

That's not proving otherwise. Connecting any load is in fact making an
observation, whether the load be a DMM or an organic breathing entity.

then define load?, is the insulation around the conductor a load ?
IS the air a load, the only thing that can't be considered a load is a vacuum.