Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!nuchat!steve
From: steve@nuchat.sccsi.com (Steve Nuchia)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: High Tension Wire Hazards?
Message-ID: <1991Mar24.213922.3838@nuchat.sccsi.com>
Date: 24 Mar 91 21:39:22 GMT
References: <17100012@inmet> <8582@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>
Organization: South Coast Computing Services, Inc.  Houston
Lines: 20

In <8582@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> wilker@gauss.math.purdue.edu.UUCP (Clarence Wilkerson) writes:
>in contrast to the inverse-square
>dropoff for a point source, for an infinite line source,
>it's an inverse linear dropoff.

Are you thinking of monopole sources or far-field EM waves?  Neither
model is appropriate for this problem.  Substituting an appropriate
model, the near E field of a dipole, gives us an extra 1/r to play with.

Inverse square is the right law to use here.  If you are close enough
to be able to consider a single conductor as a line charge source you
are way too close, and if you are far enough away to model the transmission
line as a linear source of 60 Hz electromagnetic radiation you have better
things to worry about, like the Van Allen belts.

-- 
Steve Nuchia	      South Coast Computing Services      (713) 964-2462
	"Innocence is a splendid thing, only it has the misfortune
	 not to keep very well and to be easily misled."
	    --- Immanuel Kant,  Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals