Remote Back-scratching

The Acme Company has a steam engine which drives a rod back and forth. This goes through a seal and connects to a piston in a pipe which is filled with water, as shown below. Both ends of the pipe are submerged in Lake Erie, and in half a cycle, the amount of water entering one end is equal to the amount leaving the other end. In the next half cycle, the water goes the other way. As you can see, this action powers the back scratcher.

The enhanced quality of life from this technology is obvious. Sign up for this service now for only $999. You supply the piping.

Electric power companies can operate essentially the same way but with wires full of electrons instead of pipes full of water, and using the earth instead of the lake. If you had a powerful generator not connected to the earth, you could stand in a mud puddle in your bare feet and touch either electrode, and you would not get a shock, whereas if you touch the power company's "hot" wire, it could kill you.

Actually, power is transmitted using a three phase system without relying on earth currents. There might be some very remote areas where the one-wire system is more economical, so maybe this is done in a few cases.

My main pages:
Mechanics
Fluids, heat, electricity and magnetism
Vibrations and waves
Quantum

Comments, questions: Email fredrick.gram at tri-c.edu (remove spaces and replace at with @. This is to thwart spammer software that copies email addresses that are listed on the web). Look up stuff in my index, but you probably won't find what you want.