John Moore (04/30/91)
DURRETT@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU writes in <91119.150709DURRETT@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU>: >the electrical ground, most often plumbing in a house). The currents are caused >by phase differences between neighboring homes. However, at 60 Hz the skin >depth of your skin is some absurdly low number of microns or less(sorry, I >don't even remember the order of magnitude and units, but < 1E-7 m is close >enough). The field from external sources in your body is near zero... This is not true. The electric field is near zero, but the magnetic field is hardly attenuated at all. There is a reason the magnetic shielding is made of mu-metal, not just an ordinary conductor! Check the physics. >Incidentally, Barnes was part of a group that did a followup study to the >original study purporting to show a link between childhood leukemia and >proximity to power lines(a 1-2 sigma deviation, by the way). Actually measuring >the fields outside the house(which the original study *did not* do) reduced >the correlation so that the significance was only one sigma. Of course, if you assume that people spend most of their time INSIDE the house, one wonders why the fields outside are of such interest :-) --- John Moore, Anasazi Inc. - Paris, France (TDY) - 33-1-47.72.18.26 asuvax.eas.asu.edu!anasaz!john -or- anasaz!john@asuvax.eas.asu.edu --- "First we'll cut it off, then we'll kill it." - Colin Powell, CJCS When the future becomes the present, it's never the same as when it was the future.