On Wednesday, 25 April 2018 21:41:26 UTC+1, Roger Hayter wrote:
Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp wrote:

On Wed, 25 Apr 2018 15:44:13 +0100, (Roger Hayter)
wrote:

whisky-dave wrote:

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:

snip

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.

I know of a Mr Maxwell who might have disagreed with you over the
vacuum, depending how long the wire is and how fast the voltage is
changing.

A true genius! I find it amazing how someone could predict wireless,
Terry Wogan and Monty Python even before Marconi was born.

The only load in a vaccum would be the insulation. A conductor on its
own would remain unobserved and thus neither dead nor alive.

As Mr Maxwell predicted, free space provides a load (and has an
impedance which is definable) and can carry real solid generated power
away from your wire to the far ends of the universe.




Such a postulation would be very silly though, because you could not
have a vacuum. Assuming it occupies the same universe there will be no
vacuum as only a few million light years from the subject there will
no doubt be metals or charged gasses for it to affect.

AB

For these purposes, with a few simple precautions, air is just as good
as a vacuum (a theoretical concept as you point out) and the quality of
the vacuum is irrelevant.

I hope Mr Dyson isn't reading this ;-)