Re: [Phys-l] Wiki. is wrong?

[Bernard Cleyet <bernardcleyet@redshift.com>]

On 2011, Jul 27, , at 14:42, John Clement wrote:

> Now an interesting question: Is it possible to have the meter run backwards?
>
> The answer is: Yes!
>
> We had a case of this.  In our barn the meter would normally go forwards,
> but if you turned off all the lights except for one particualar light the
> meter ran backwards.  We never found out why this happened, but that light
> was left on all the time to save a little money.
>
> This was in the 1950s, and it might be possible that the design was slightly
> different, but would anyone know why this might have happened?
>
> John M. Clement
> Houston, TX




Perhaps the inductance of the wiring caused just the correct phase shift.  The eddy current generator requires a 90 degree difference in addition to what ever the power factor does.  With no power consumed the load would be capacitive.

bc thinks one could try removing ("Switch to safety.") the load and adding various reactive loads.

p.s.  They run backward when the "power" direction reversed.  (Does this make power a (pseudo?) vector?)