Power Cord Burn-In

Scottht,

I'm with you - there are differences between cables because
they are physically different.

A cable is a transmission line - and the dimensions and
geometry of the conductor and the dielectric, and other
physical factors determine the electrical properties of the
cable.

As for "burn-in" - it doesn't physically alter the cable -
hence can't physically alter the electrical transmission
properties of the cable.

Dr. Gregory Greenman
Physicist

Brain Walsh,

I can only say that I'm not particulary impressed with that work.
I wouldn't call it "definitive". [ It's an undergraduate textbook, after all.]

He lacks the mathematical rigor - and hence the insight -
that one gets from actually solving the equations of
quantum mechanics that describe electron transport
except in the most simple cases.

It's a good "engineering" text - that's my opinion.

The computational physics of neutron, photon, and electron transport
in complex geometries happens to be my particular forte'.

Dr. Gregory Greenman
Physicist

Gmorris,

I've signed my name that way for years - since the early
advent of Usenet.

As other posters have stated - the "inexact science" of
"human emotion" and the "musical experience" is not germane
to this topic.

It is purely about how electrons transport in cables.

Your remark that we can model electron transport only under
"very restricted conditions" tells me that you have absolutely
no concept of the state of the art in the computational
physics of electron transport. With modern parallel processing
computers - we have greatly expanded the regimes in which
one can accurately model electron transport in cables to
very high order.

Gregory Greenman
[ You like that better? ]

Gmorris,

EVERY model is an approximation at some level.

The question is to what degree does the approximation hold.

The approximations made in modern calculations of electron
transport are orders of magnitude better than the approximation
of your EARS and "musical memory" that you hold so definitive.

Dr. Gregory Greenman

Scottht,

Passing electrical signals through IC cables can't align
copper or silver grains - there's just not enough energy
there.

In order for the grains to alter, you have to heat the cable
so that you push the material into another phase on the
phase diagram - then cool the cable so that new grains grow.

For example, you may have a metal that is say FCC [ that is
it has a Face Centered Cubic crystal structure. ] You heat
the metal until it reaches a new phase - e.x. BCC [ Body
Centered Cubic structure ]. When you cool the material -
the molecules have to rearrange themselves back into the
FCC phase.

If you cool the metal fast - you will get lots of small
grains. If you cool slowly - you get fewer larger grains.

That's the essence of "heat treatment".

But cables don't get hot enough to heat treat from passing
electrical signals.

Dr. Gregory Greenman
Physicist

Gmorris,

I received my PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
over 20 years ago. So your implication that I'm "wet behind the ears"
is unfounded.

In our work, we have to take into account the degree to which
the cable that carrys the signals from the experimental
diagnostics affect the signals from those diagnostics.
Therefore, the transport of electrons in cables has been
extensively studied.

If you think that Maxwell's Equations are the state of the
art in modelling electron transport in cables - you are
WAY behind the times.

If you are also a physicist, then you know that instrumetation
is so much better than your "EARS" and musical memory.

Just as pilots have to learn to ignore their fallible
senses and trust their instrumentation - or they end up
like JFK Jr; you have to realize that your ears are not
the fine tuned instrumentation you think they are.

I'm not trying to be pompous - just to provide some
good scientific information to combat all the "snake-oil"
and pseudo-science that some people are spending their
hard-earned money on - but to no avail. [ Except maybe
a placebo effect - which is the most likely explanation
for the supposed improvements.]

Dr. Gregory Greenman
Physicist

Flex,

The quoted portion of my previous post is an ANALOGY.

It's not meant as any type of proof - it's just an analogy.

You're pushing an analogy to an absurd degree. Of course
it is well recognized that humans are much better at
"pattern recognition" than current computer algorithms.

However, this is a non sequitur when it comes to how electrons
flow in cables - and the computational physics that can
currently be used to model such to a high degree of accuracy.

Gregory Greenman