Chapter 3

 
It is important to stress how recent is the advent of man-made electricity. It was a very unfamiliar phenomenon at the start of the 20th Century. Indeed electric power was first generated commercially only a little over a century ago and it was decades before it became universally available in even the most technologically advanced and affluent countries. Yet within a few generations electricity has become a central, indispensable part of modern life.

        Mains electricity was introduced in 1882. For a brief period Direct Current (DC) was the favoured source, but for technical reasons that need not concern us here, DC has severe limitations if you want to generate electricity in power stations and send it around the country to the ultimate user. So before long. Alternating Current (AC) arrived and this is now the universal power source.

        Alternating Current, as its name indicates, does not flow steadily in one direction, but oscillates to and fro. In Europe and much of the world it does this fifty times every second, which is normally indicated as 50Hz, but America and some other countries use 60Hz. It is the electromagnetic fields produced by AC current that are now becoming recognised as a key contributory factor to many of our health problems.

        Until the mains supply arrived, muscles rather than electricity supplied the power to wash the clothes and clean the floors. Radios, when they appeared, were powered by cumbersome accumulators that had to be taken to the shop to be re-charged at regular intervals. Even as recently as the mid 1950s many rural areas of Britain still depended on gas or paraffin for lighting and heating.
It is increasingly hard to imagine such a life. Certainly, there are today few homes in the developed world and indeed ever fewer places anywhere on Earth without mains electricity. Indeed it is almost impossible to find somewhere out of range of the oscillations of mains fields.

        Because electricity provides the power source for so much of modern life, the electromagnetic picture is extremely complex. Lighting, heating, computers, domestic and electrical equipment, electrified railways, radar, television and communications, all use AC current as their power source. These work at every imaginable frequency up to several million million Hertz (10lzHz) or more — and they in their turn radiate these frequencies into the environment.
 

Broadcasting figures for the USA provides a graphic illustration of the explosive growth of the uses of electricity. Figures for the U.S.A. graphically illustrate the scale of growth. The first commercial radio station started transmission in 1920 and there were only a few thousand broadcast sources in 1939. This had risen to 30 million stations by 1979 and the total today is around 50 million. Radio and television waves fill the ether so that transmissions can be picked up in the most remote places on Earth. A leading U.S. expert, Dr.Robert Becker, has written that the total density of radio frequency waves penetrating every corner of the planet (and every person on it) is now 100 to 200 million times the level reaching us naturally from the Sun.1 As we have evolved to tolerate only the natural level it is hard to imagine that we can not be affected by an increase of such gargantuan proportions over so short a time span.

        Britain's first public radio station appeared less than 70 years ago, and well into the 1950s there were only three stations broadcasting in the UK (Home, Light and Third), with crackly Radio Luxembourg providing the thrills of advertisements on the air waves. Other countries had a similarly limited choice.

        Today there is simply no more room in the radio frequency spectrum. If you want a new national station, you have to give up an existing one. Even low powered stations with limited operating areas are subject to strict controls to stop the transmissions of one station interfering with another. This is necessary even though a very wide range of frequencies is now in use for radio broadcasting and despite the sophistication of modern receivers which can distinguish accurately transmitters operating only a few Hertz apart.

        Communications transmissions use the upper end of the radio frequency band and range from the emergency services and aircraft control to telecommunications and cell-phones. There has been rapid expansion of many such applications in the last couple of decades and the frequencies reserved for them are similarly crowded (as many cellphone users will tell you) and ever more uses for the air-waves appear every year.

This is an appropriate point to take a look at just what we mean by electromagnetic fields (EMF) and the different forms they can take. A simple way to picture them is to think what happens when we drop a pebble into a pond. A series of concentric ripples spreads out from the point of disturbance, weakening (becoming smaller) the further they travel.

        Electrons vibrating backwards and forwards 50 times every second in a wire connected to the mains produce a similar disturbance in space, except, that in this case, the 'ripples' are the lines of force of the EMF. As with the pond, the field weakens as it moves out from the conductor, (fig,3) In the case of EMFs there are two types of 'ripples', the electrical and magnetic parts of the field and they radiate at right angles to both each other and to the conductor carrying the current. To visualise this, hold out your right hand in front of you, point forward with your index finger, then stick your thumb up vertically and your second finger at right angles to your palm, if the index finger represents the wire carrying the current, then the thumb and second finger show the direction of the electrical and magnetic parts of the radiating field.

Fig 3: Electrical and magnetic fields

        Electromagnetic radiations of many kinds occur in nature, although at very much lower intensities than most man-made fields. Indeed, daylight, produced by the Sun, is such a radiation. There are other sources of light in nature; glow worms and certain fish can produce dim light for instance and radioactive substances glow in the dark too.

        Visible licht lies within a narrow band from 4 x 1014 to 7.7 x 10'4Hz and every colour in the spectrum has its own specific frequency. 1 m sorry if the notation puts you off, but you must admit that 1O14 (which simply means '1 with 14 zeros after it') is neater and easier to read than 100 000 000,000,000. Light (which we can see) and infra-red (which is' felt as warmth) are the only parts of the electromagnetic spectrum for which we have specific sense organs. This is what makes all other electromagnetic radiations both rather mysterious and, in many cases, so potentially dangerous.

        Probably the most important fact about light in the context of this book is that even though it is a natural EMF we all know it can be unpleasant or even dangerous in excess. Stay out too long in strong sunlight and you will get sunburn. Do it too often, and there is a risk of skin cancer. With the much publicised 'holes' in the ozone layer increasing the amount of ultra-violet light that reaches Earth, this latter risk has significantly increased in many places. Many Australians for instance are now pale-skinned rather than the bronzed stereotype, staying indoors or wearing protective hats and clothing when outdoors, so worried have they become. Similarly, excessive exposure to infrared can be harmful, which incidentally raises questions about the long-term health prospects of supermarket check-out operators using scanning equipment on modern EPOS till systems.

        The Sun produces other EMFs in the radio-frequency range — you will have heard of sun-spots and probably know that they can interfere with radio and television reception.

        If we look at a chart of different electromagnetic frequencies (fig.4), we see that light is somewhere in the middle, with mains electricity at one end and ionising radiation at the other. Working up from the lowest frequencies, we have the following picture:
— certain specialised frequencies such as electric fences — I Hz; and electric railways in some countries (not Britain) — 16 2/3 z.
— mains electricity — 50Hz (or 60Hz in U.S.A. and some other countries).
— radio, television and radar — a very wide band from 3 x 104 to 3 x 10l2Hz. At the upper end of this range are so-called microwaves, used for communications (telecommunications, military, etc.) as well as microwave ovens.
— infra-red radiation — from 3 x 1011 to 3 x 10l4Hz.— visible light — a narrow band from 4 x 1014 to 7.7 x 10l4Hz.
— ultra-violet radiation from 7.7 x 1014 to 3 x 1017Hz.
— ionising radiations (neutrons, alpha-, beta-, gamma- and X-rays) — up to 3 x 1022Hz

This is a good point to clarify the matter of ionising and non-ionising radiation. (See also later in the text and the glossary.) As you can see from the outline above and from the chart, what are called ionising radiations occur at the high end of the spectrum. There is no controversy about the hazards which these represent — their name means that they will ionise or change the molecular structure of tissue exposed to them. This is what makes them so dangerous.

        We are concerned here only with the lower frequency, non-ionising waves. But the fact that they do not directly affect molecular structure in the way that a gamma-ray or an X-ray will does not necessarily mean that they pose no threat to living organisms and in particular to us.

There are two possible ways to avoid electromagnetic radiations: try to move far enough from the source so that the field has weakened to an acceptable level; or find some way of shielding ourselves, that is, of stopping the radiation reaching us. When talking about shielding we must distinguish between the two main types of electromagnetic radiation.

        Electrical Fields are produced whenever there is a voltage in a conductor (voltage is the 'pressure' that pushes the electric current around a circuit). These fields will be present even if there is no current flowing. There is no need for anything to be connected to the circuit. (Think of a water-pipe in your house; the water in it is under pressure whether you are using it or not). Electrical fields will be absorbed by any material that conducts electricity — walls, people, trees — and so it is fairly easy to shield against them.

        Magnetic Fields, on the other hand, are produced only when current flows (that is, when the circuit is switched on, just as water flows in a pipe when a tap is opened). These fields pass almost unhindered through people, the ground and many building materials, although concrete and steelwork in buildings will reduce them to some degree. Mains frequency magnetic fields are particularly persistent. Even aluminium sheeting half an inch (12mm.) thick will only be partially effective. As a result, shielding against them is extremely difficult and often, for all practical purposes, impossible. The relatively small shielding effects of common construction material is well illustrated in Table 3.

 
        Both electrical and magnetic fields become weaker with distance. For instance, there are very strong fields immediately under a high voltage power line, but they fall away steadily as you move away. It has been suggested that the UK should follow the practice of some other countries and establish a clear zone (which can be 100 yards [91metres] or more) on either side of power lines within which building houses is banned. In America or Russia the debate is whether existing zones are wide enough, whereas in the U.K. there are no regulations at all and power lines often run directly over inhabited areas.

        There is no easy answer to the problem as fields from strong sources can persist over amazing distances; for instance, in Germany the characteristic 16 2AHz waves of the railway system have been detected in the earth 10 miles (16 km) from the nearest line (the operating voltage in this case is up to 110kV, which is far less than most power distribution lines). It is necessary to move fully 3A of a mile (1.2km) from a 500KV overhead power line before field strengths fall off to 'background' levels, and higher voltages than this are increasingly used around the world.

        However, it is not only high voltages which should concern us. Although many people worry about their house being too near a power line, few think about the wiring in their houses. A simple calculation will show that wiring in your bedroom may produce a field in your brain as strong as that from a pylon at the end of the garden. In other words, being close to a weak source can have as much effect as being further away from a strong one. In either case the effective frequency is the same, which is probably the most important characteristic. The results of exposure may be different in the two cases, but it seems likely that both can cause health problems.
 

To put things into perspective, it will be useful to make some comparisons between the field strengths that are found in nature, especially in the body, and those which are produced by man-made electricity. Don't worry if the actual figures do not make a lot of sense to you; it is the relationship between the strengths which matters.
Natural electrical and magnetic fields are mostly very weak.   The magnetic field of the Earth in Northern Europe is around half a gauss (0.5G), and although there are small variations as you travel around the globe, it is of this order of magnitude wherever you are situated. A Gauss is a well-established measurement of magnetic field density, but nowadays scientists prefer to measure these magnetic fields in units called Tesla (T) which are 10,000 times bigger. The Earth's 0.5G becomes 0.00005T, which makes it seem even tinier.

        However, even this is still massive when compared with the field produced by the human brain, which is around 0.000000000000000 IT. Because of the vast number of zeros, this is usually written as 10"'5T, but either way it is still an extremely weak field! Indeed, instruments capable of measuring it have been developed only fairly recently and in order to use them, special shielding must be used to exclude the much stronger field of the Earth.

        On the other hand, when an electrical engineer talks about weak magnetic fields, he is probably referring to something less than 100G, orO.OOlT, afull 100 billion times stronger than that of the brain. That is 100,000,000,000 or 10" times stronger. Small wonder that biologists and engineers disagree over whether a particular field is weak or strong, as they are talking a different language.
 
 

NOTE
1.  Becker, R.O. & Selden, G., The Body Electric. Wm. Morrow (1985) p.275.

Click on Following Chapters to Read or Download:-

Electrostress-
Chapter 01 Disease
Chapter 02 Vibrations

Chapter 04 Bedtime Story
Chapter 05 Around the House
Chapter 06 Power Lines
Chapter 07 Computers
Chapter 08 Microwaves
Chapter 09 Some Solutions
Chapter 10 The Positive Side?

Geopathic (Earth Energies) Stress
11  Earth Stress, Earthquakes, Earth Sensitives
12 History of Ley Lines, Ionization Under Cancer Beds, Scientific Measurements
13 How to Use Divining Rods, Protect Yourself, Allergies
14 Unhealthy Earth Energies, The Hartmann Net and Curry Grid
 15 Black Spirals, Crop Circles, Demons, Oscilloscope Measurement
16 Crossing Leys, Ion Effect, Allergic to Microwave Ovens, Graveyards, Quarries
17 Natural and Man-made Sources of Unhealthy Energies
18 Imprinting Your Own Energy
19 Eliminating Unhealthy Earth Energy
20 Cup-marked Stones or Petroglyphs
21 Human disease and Mother Earth

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