Can someone here please explain in laymen’s terms what energy flow contours surrounding a transmission line is.

Thank you in advance.

Guess mode on

A transmission line, unless shielded, and carrying a current has a electromagnetic field around it. This field drops in intensity and obeys the inverse square law, double the distance from the line and the field intensity drops to a quarter. So I would imagine that you can graph this drop and develop "contour" lines of the field.

Guess mode off.

I found some reference to this on a {shudder} free energy site.

It is my guess that the ulitity companies have spent millions on such research to defend themselves in court over cancer issues. Ever notice the amount of ant hills near power lines? Ants seem to be attracted to something with the power lines and it isn't the wide open spaces. In open fields they are denser near the power lines than anywhere else. If you haven't noticed then go take a look.

Originally posted by wet1
Ever notice the amount of ant hills near power lines?I hunt on power line right-of-ways quite often, and have not noticed this phenomenon. I do recall reading, however, that fire ant colonies are quite a problem under electrical transmission lines. Are the mounds you noticed fire ant colonies? It would be interesting to know if different species are attracted.From WIRED via PointCast (1997)
Stephanie Upps watched in horror as one of her final papers disappeared off her PowerBook at 2 a.m. one night during her last semester as a University of Texas graduate student. Her friends couldn't find the bug, so she called the 1-800 support line in desperation. "They told me to pull out the battery and give them the serial number," she says. "When I did, it was just crawling with ants." Far from a fluke, Upps' encounter with ants in the machine is happening to others with greater frequency. "The problem's endemic across Texas," she said.Peace.

Boris2: Thank you for your guess mode answer. I will apply it to the rest of my ongoing research of this topic. :)

Boris wrote: “A transmission line, unless shielded, and carrying a current has a electromagnetic field around it. This field drops in intensity and obeys the inverse square law, double the distance from the line and the field intensity drops to a quarter.”

A pedantic hamster quibble. If this hamster remembers correctly point sources follow an inverse square law. Infinite transmission lines should produce fields following an inverse linear law. A real world transmission line should act somewhat like a point source and somewhat like an infinite line depending on the length of the line and the distance of the field from the line.

So where does the zero point energy theorem fit into all of this?

Please try and be as simple as possible. My brain hurts sometimes when I tink to hard. lol :D

ImaHamster2: Thank you for your most helpful knowledge. I will add this nibblett to my collection of thoughts.