Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!umich!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!sci.ccny.cuny.edu!phri!roy From: roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) Newsgroups: sci.electronics Subject: Re: Watt Hour Meters Message-ID: <1990Jan16.151411.21974@phri.nyu.edu> Date: 16 Jan 90 15:14:11 GMT References: <17660041@hpfcdj.HP.COM> Sender: news@phri.nyu.edu (News System) Organization: Public Health Research Institute, New York City Lines: 22 Richard S D'Ippolito says: > The order of the letters is the key. Voltage (E) across an inductor (L) > leads (comes before) the current (I). And Bob Myers says: > I "comes after" E in an L. E-L-I, ELI...get it? Nothing ambigous > about that! This is getting silly. I think we're arguing orthagonal arguments, i.e. both Richard and Bob have answered a different question than the one that was asked. Given both (correct) interpretations of ELI the ICE man above, tell me, does an inductive load have a leading or lagging power factor? At this point, I'm not so much interested in the right answer, but in somebody showing me how you can unambigiously derive the sign of the phase of the power factor from the mnemonic. The problem is not in understanding the physics, but in remembering the arbitrary naming convention. -- Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu -OR- {att,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy "My karma ran over my dogma"