[BBLISA] Gadgets, power lines, and health [OT]

[Dean Anderson]

Hi Scott,

Radiated power decreases as the square of the distance. So your .75watt
cellphone radiates a lot more power 1/8 inch from your head than does a
100megawatt powerline at a quarter mile. This sounds wrong to me for
some reason-- the total radiated power doesn't change, but the farther
away you are, the less power you can absorb--I'm thinking too much or
not enough.. sigh... Monday. You get the idea, anyway.

If you want to play some math games, suppose you have a 100megawatt
power line. Most of the power is transmitted to the other end. Some
power is lost due to heating of the power lines. What remains is the
power available for radiation at 60Hz on a long cylindrical copper
conductor.  But remember to radiate an em wave, you also need to
impedance-match free space somewhere.  All this could be calculated from
first principles, and I think one will find very little energy is
available to be radiated by a power line.  However, some energy is
radiated by power lines.  The microwave is roughly at the same frequency
as the cellphone, but is shielded.  But the cellphone is at a frequency
that is known to be bad for you (only in much larger amounts). That's
what you should worry about.

I suggest you sit in on 6.071.


		--Dean

On Sun, 7 Sep 2008, Scott R. Ehrlich wrote:

> This is somewhat off-topic, but still relevant to our jobs and hobbies -
> 
> Many of us have and use cell phones, microwave ovens, and tube televisions and 
> computer monitors (until the tubes die and we get flat panel displays).
> 
> High tension power lines also exist.
> 
> Can list members point me (and other list members) to definitive sources 
> providing factual information on studies, etc, on the safety and overall health 
> balances of exposure to these things.  If you look out your backyard at home 
> and see, roughly 1/4 mile away, and see a high tension power line, how much 
> risk is that compared to the cell phones around me or that I may use, vs a 
> microwave often that gets used on a regular basis, vs watching tv on tube set, 
> vs sitting for hours at a crt computer monitor?
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> Scott
> 
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