A thought provoking quote
“Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours”? Gordon Lightfoot
The real meaning behind the lyrics
There are many kinds of waves, but obviously the waves mentioned above by Gordon Lightfoot are from the song titled, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”, about the iron ore ship tragedy on Lake Superior almost 39 years ago. A carrier ship called the SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank during a bad storm on the lake in 1975. The severe winter storm was said to have hurricane force winds and waves that were 35 feet high. The sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald is one of the best-known disasters in the history of Great Lakes shipping. It got me thinking about all the different waves that we encounter in our everyday lives and the ones that we deal with at our company, Static Clean and how it all might be related. We normally think of the motion of a disturbance of water in a lake or the ocean as a wave. But, what about other mechanical waves, such as the stadium wave at a sporting event. One can image the fans following the shape of the water and it’s up and down movement. There are also light waves, sound waves and electromechanical waves, but the premise is the same. The displaced energy in all forms returns to its original position.
What does it have to do with Static Electricity?
In the efforts to control static electricity, the most common power supply to create ions on various neutralizing apparatus is done using a 60 Hz. AC sine wave. In this case the AC stands for Alternating Current and it is mostly related to a specific voltage that is required for ions to occur. The energy (sine wave cycle) goes between positive and negative and the swing time to complete the cycle is 1/60th of a second. That means that every 1/120th of second, it is either in positive or negative mode. Static electricity problems are when a material is charged either positively or negatively. The Static Clean Power supplies were designed to fight unwanted static electricity. Because of the design, they will put out energy, create bipolar ions and let nature take its course where opposites attract, thus cancelling out the static problem regardless of polarity.
