hi rod, well, the math looks good, but you most likely knew that anyhow.
the relative error between 325 watts and 250 watts is about 23%. pretty high, imho. the implicit assumption is that the dial's rotational speed increases linearly with energy consumption. i have no inner feeling for whether that's true or not. however, i can tell you that the power delivered by an harmonic wave of any sort is proportional to the *square* of its amplitude. that's kind of counter intuitive, and was just meant to illustrate that linear increase in angular speed may not result in linear increase in consumed power. but i'm _very_ interested in hearing PG&E's response to this. please send a followup to this when you have more info! pete ps- what kind of bulb consumes 250 watts? a french fry lamp? :) begin Rod Roark <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > I got my first electric bill at the new house; looks too > high. So I decided to do an experiment. > > Outside the house is an electric meter. It reads KWH > accumulated on 5 dials, and has a horizontal platter that > appears to spin about 100 revolutions per KWH (anyone know > if this is exactly true for a standard meter?). > > So I figure that means 10 watt-hours per rev, or 36,000 > watt-seconds per rev. > > I timed one revolution with most things in the house turned > off. 45 seconds. Then I turned on a 250W light bulb and > timed it again. 32 seconds. So: > > 36,000 watt-secs / 45 secs = 800 watts > 36,000 watt-secs / 32 secs = 1125 watts > > 1125 - 800 = 325 watts -- for a 250W bulb. > > How come? Should I complain to PG&E, or is there some > gotcha that I'm missing? > > Thanks, > > -- Rod > > _______________________________________________ > vox-tech mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://lists.lugod.org/mailman/listinfo/vox-tech -- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi, being prophetic about Linux. Fingerprint: B9F1 6CF3 47C4 7CD8 D33E 70A9 A3B9 1945 67EA 951D _______________________________________________ vox-tech mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.lugod.org/mailman/listinfo/vox-tech
