All:
I posted here to make you all think about how context is everything. You simply can't make broad sweeping statements or big generalizations and claim that they are true. Otto has some sort of experience in a hospital that may be related to huge MRI or other huge machines that might consume tens or hundreds of kilowatts of power and let's assume he's right. The problem is that Otto's first posting gave no context at all about what he was talking about. People around here play with simple electronic circuits and small little experimental pulse motors, and that has noting at all to do with Otto's hospital experience. You have to frame your discussion with real tangible information otherwise what you are saying is almost meaningless.
Look at the brainwave example. Who said that a small bench setup powered by a 12-volt battery is going to affect your brainwaves? Who said that brainwaves can even be affected by low-level external magnetic fields such that they get "knocked" off their normal pattern from the external EM influence? Nobody said this at all. Darkspeed simply posted a link to a page that shows typical brainwave frequencies. Are we all just supposed to assume that there is a connection between brainwave patterns and external EM frequencies just because of a link that has absolutely nothing to do with this relationship? Of course the answer to this question is "no."
You should all be cautious about making conclusions about things like this just because somebody throws a link at you or just because somebody says something. In the context of what the typical experimenter is doing around here working on his bench, the "frequencies below 1 KHz are dangerous" and "your brainwaves can be affected" are NOT TRUE. You have to look at the whole picture. I have been around electronics for 30 years and these kinds of statements have never come up, ever.
WaveWatcher doesn't like my questioning what people say. In my opinion you should all question what others post if it does not smell right to you or you flat-out disagree or you think that the statement has no context and for all practical intents and purposes is pure disinformation. Taking the point of view that says "everybody can say anything and just take what they say at face value" is the wrong way to go. Then things become a nonsensical circus. Did any of you ever read posts by Innovation_Station on OU? They are almost always completely ridiculous nonsense.
WaveWatcher has stated that he can get nausea from his experiments. I got shocked from my car's ignition wire once and felt queasy for 20 minutes. So certainly the issue can arise, but in general for the average Joe Blow experimenter it is not an issue at all.
Of course, the books say there is no such thing as longitudinal EM propagation (even though it is known and used in waveguides and microwave cavities). I suppose you will be correcting me on that?
I don't know why you would say that the "books" say that. There are so many "bash science" or "science is stupid" old wives' tales around it is not funny. You try sitting through a course in microwaves and you might think differently. The harsh truth is that on forums like these, 99.9% of the comments by experimenters where they proudly claim that they are generating longitudinal waves are based on pure wild speculation, they have no clue what kind of waves they are generating at all. It just sounds cool to say that half of your experiments are generating longitudinal waves. Talking about microwaves and wave modes of propagation is for the big boys that do the real thing. In other words real microwave engineers. Just the math would be enough to make a typical experimenter around here curl up into a ball.
AllCanadian:
For people that design typical digital computer boards for PC or microcontroller applications, they don't worry about the "external influences" that you refer to at all. It's a different story for electronics to be used in space applications.
It should be understood that this is not a standard low voltage EM wave being considered and the effects are not even comparable.
No I don't think that should be understood at all. I don't think the brainwave issue was meant to be about electromagnetic pulses from nukes. Plus the frequency issue becomes much more complicated when talking about an EMP. Perhaps you could educate us about that issue. You are simply going off into the stratosphere. I will repeat it again, I do not get an engineering vibe from you at all. I don't detect anything "engineering" in your postings, and I have read a lot of them.
Anyway, I hope that some of you got something from this posting. I encourage you to question each other all the time. Don't take somebody's word for it just because they said it. Avoid the "anybody can say anything" attitude because then this place can become a zoo. I can cite one example. One of the other forum operators sometimes makes postings about how a bouncing ball is an example of COP > 1 and no one ever challenges him. He is dead wrong and simply does not understand the physics and energy dynamics of a bouncing ball. I encourage all of you to think and question and learn, that's what this place is all about in your quest for over unity.
MileHigh