Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Re: Touching a "hot" connector
Message-ID: <1989Aug9.174718.21811@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <427@edai.ed.ac.uk> <880007@hpmtlx.HP.COM> <31069@coherent.com>
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 89 17:47:18 GMT

In article <31069@coherent.com> dplatt@coherent.com (Dave Platt) writes:
>There's a very interesting writeup on this phenomenon in a book on
>biological rhythms published by The Scientific American Library...
>If you draw up a three-dimensional graph (X = starting phase, Y =
>current applied, Z = resulting phase), you'll find that there is an
>inescapable singularity in the Z-axis values... the singularity is
>an attracting point... the oscillator "hangs up" and begins exhibiting
>nonregular behavior...

I saw what was probably the same writeup when it was originally published
in Scientific American (the S.A. books are usually just collections of
articles).  They had a 3D graph of the heart oscillator's behavior, using
color as the third dimension, which I remember vividly because of a friend's
comment.  The graph was a swirl of bright colors, with the singularity
showing as two oval black spots side-by-side in the middle.  My friend saw
it, read the caption, and commented:  "the eyes of Death".

Best not to mess with those milliamps...
-- 
1961-1969: 8 years of Apollo.  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
1969-1989: 20 years of nothing.| uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu