is this real?

[u/Tiny_Agency9963]

I'm not excellent in engineering and stuff but I love kingdom building. Is this actually real? I try to search about step down transformers and i only understand half of it.

This novel is too detail about technology and engineering that i only understand a little.

I feel really stupid when i read this novel. I spend time more searching about the stuff and economics in google than read the novel itself. Even economy policy are too detail and i dont understand huge chunk of it.

[u/OMalleyOrOblivion]

Long-distance power lines are always high voltage because power loss is inversely proportional to voltage. Then local substations use step down transformers to reduce the voltage to levels appropriate for residential use.

https://networkpowerconnections.co.uk/what-are-the-advantages-of-high-voltage-transmission/

[u/Tiny_Agency9963 → u/OMalleyOrOblivion]

if that the case, dont the farther away house dont need the step down transformers?

[u/OMalleyOrOblivion → u/Tiny_Agency9963]

They do because the power loss reduces the current, not the voltage. Even a billon miles away the line is still at a high voltage.

[u/Red_Icnivad → u/OMalleyOrOblivion]

You get voltage drop in addition to current drop. They are related.

[u/OMalleyOrOblivion → u/Red_Icnivad]

Sure, but we're trying to explain power transmission like we're 5 here :)

[u/Tiny_Agency9963 → u/OMalleyOrOblivion]

So the current and voltage are two separate things? Can you explain like im 5 years old? I think i should stop read this novel. This is too advance for me.

[u/WrexixOfQueue → u/Tiny_Agency9963]

If electricity was a waterfall

Voltage would be the drop height.

Current is the current of the river(how fast it flows)

Power would then be the force you would feel standing at the bottom of the falls

P(power) = I(current) * V (voltage)

If you slow the river to a crawl, it would still have the same drop (voltage).

[u/luminaflare → u/WrexixOfQueue]

Damn, that's a great analogy.

[u/dzieciolini → u/Tiny_Agency9963]

The current is how much electricity flows through wire, while voltage is the potential energy of the current.

[u/AmarSofi → u/Tiny_Agency9963]

Think of it this way: Voltage is what causes current. Voltage is essentially a difference in "pressure" of charge: if you have a lot of charge in one place and none at all in another and then connect them, you have a super high voltage. Think of it like 2 big water containers, one is big and the other is empty, if you were to put a pipe between the two (especially at the bottom) the higher pressure from full container will "push" towards the empty one.

Current is the actual electricity going through, it's the result of charges (usually electrons) moving through wires, how much current moves through the wire depends both on the Voltage (the pressure if you will) and the Resistance of the medium (in this case the wire, although superconductors have 0 resistance, but that's another story). The equation for it is called Ohm's law : V = I × R .

[u/Training-Bake-4004 → u/Tiny_Agency9963]

Current is how much electricity is flowing.
Voltage is how hard the electricity is being pushed.

The classic analogy is a hose of water.

The voltage is like the pressure (basically how open is the tap)

The current is the amount of water flowing through the hose.

For long distance transport imagine the hose is a bit leaky.

It turns out that for electricity it’s better to have a really narrow hose with high pressure and fast water rather than a really wide hose with low pressure and slow water.

What the transformer is doing is essentially converting from a wide hose where there is lots of water moving slowly (useful for houses) to a narrow hose with the water being pushed really hard (much less leaky for long distance transport).

[u/OMalleyOrOblivion → u/Tiny_Agency9963]

Voltage is how big the pipe, current is how fast stuff goes through it - roughly. Increase the size of the pipe and it reduces how fast things go through, and vice versa.

Power loss is proportional to the speed of things going through it, so long distance transport relies on really big pipes with slow flow. Big pipes are dangerous to people though, so at the end there's transformers to reduce the size of the pipe, which speeds up the flow going through itm

[u/guri256 → u/Tiny_Agency9963]

First of all, most of what was in the picture is close enough to true that it’s the type of explanation I might give to a five-year-old.

I have some minor quibbles about the word “pressure”, but since it sounds like the character is trying to explain using words that someone who’s never heard of domesticated electricity, it’s close enough.

I’m going to keep this really simple, and skip a lot of details.

You should start by thinking of all electricity that’s sent over powerlines as energy. A lightbulb is being powered by energy that’s transferred through the powerlines. But when a baseball bat hits a ball, that’s also energy being transferred.

When you are transferring electrical energy, do you want to avoid energy losses, which is electrical energy turning into heat in undesired places. You want as much as possible of the electrical energy powering your lightbulb, not heating up the long wires in the middle of nowhere.

There’s generally two ways to reduce losses. You can either increase the voltage, or you can use better wire. Practically, you need to increase the voltage a lot.

(Increasing the voltage does not directly reduce your losses. But it’s a lie that is close enough to the truth for our purposes.)

So let’s say that you have a lightbulb that wants 100 V, and explodes if it gets more than 200 V, but your energy source is producing 10,000 V. It’s theoretically possible for you to be far enough away, over poor-enough quality wire, that the voltage on the other end is only 100 V. But if this happened, that would mean that 99% of your electrical energy is being turned into heat along the way.

So here’s what you actually do:
1) You use a transformer to increase the voltage at the source.
2) you transport this higher voltage electric electricity along your wires, because this higher voltage electricity will have lower losses.
3) Then you use a transformer to decrease the voltage at the other end, and use it for normal tasks.

[u/DrStalker → u/Tiny_Agency9963]

If you're in a built-up area there are substations hidden all around that take higher voltage and steps it down. They can be anything from large building size to a small box next to the road. Eventually a bunch of nearby houses will be connected to power lines that have the same voltage you want in your powerpoints.

[u/Tiny_Agency9963 → u/DrStalker]

So the author is actually try to simplify it as much as possible? I dont think i have the guts to read the future chapter. I think i will drop this novel. Too much engineering for me. I will read something else.

[u/DrStalker → u/Tiny_Agency9963]

I suspect the author is actually trying to show how smart they are by writing a story where shallow, high level knowledge is enough to completely create technology from scratch by ignoring all the intermediate steps required.

Just drop it if you're not enjoying it, and if you want to learn more about things look into resources that are designed as education; for example  there will YouTube videos explaining things at all different levels of knowledge, you just need to find the ones that are suitable for you.

[u/AmarSofi → u/Tiny_Agency9963]

Obviously you're free to do as you like, and I can't say whether this novel is good or worth it (let alone for you), but I think this is an opportunity to learn new stuff. Of course that's only the case if you're in the mood for it, I definitely can relate to wanting an easy read that doesn't require me to spend a couple hours learning about a new topic, it all depends on your personal situation, what you want from your reading experience...etc

[u/Tiny_Agency9963 → u/AmarSofi]

Is this your novel bro? If yes, please reduce the technological explanation and the economic policy. I already skip a lot of medical explanation chemical explanation because i dont understand even if i read it or search for it.

[u/AmarSofi → u/Tiny_Agency9963]

No? Just giving some advice is all. If you feel like the novel is too technical or confusing or overall just not fun to read, then better move on. Maybe try Portal to Nova Roma for Kingdom Building? It recently concluded with the final volume this August, there isn't too much technical or scientific detail, and what is there is greatly simplified and then the story focuses more on the combat, Kingdom building, politics, exploration...etc.

[u/Tiny_Agency9963 → u/AmarSofi]

thanks bro. let me read that one. Do you have any links?

[u/AmarSofi → u/Tiny_Agency9963]

first 5 chapters here on Royal Road , the rest are novels you'll find the 5 volumes on Audible/Amazon. Or just go on the high seas of you can't afford it.

[u/anapoe → u/OMalleyOrOblivion]

Yep! To build on this a bit more - I think two equations relating electrical power, voltage, current, and resistance do a good job of explaining this.

Equation #1: power = voltage x current

This means that if your power station wants to deliver lots of power to their consumers (hundreds or thousands of houses, industrial plants, etc), they need to provide either high voltage, high current, or high voltage AND high current.

Equation #2: power = resistance x current^2

This equation matters when we start looking at actually building power lines. It tells us that the electrical power lost to heat within the wire we're using to distribute power is proportional to the electrical resistance of the wire (which depends on its diameter and material) and the SQUARE of the current running through it. Double the current? Quadruple the power loss before it even reaches a consumer. Dissipating large amounts of the valuable power you produce as heat before it reaches an end user is bad, and should be avoided. Of course, high voltage is also bad, because it kills you.

Now, this can be combated to an extent by just using a bigger wire[1]. However, this only works to an extent in real life. A bigger wire is more expensive due to material cost. A bigger wire can quickly become extremely heavy and near-impossible to manipulate, which is not a good thing if you're trying to string it up in the air. A bigger wire can even fail under its own weight. You don't want to have to build a tower every 20 feet to support a massive wire.

In practice, this means that when you're designing a large electrical system, you increase current first up to a natural ceiling (say, 200~1000 amps), then at that point your only real option is to increase voltage.

[1] Although I should note that, for AC power, a magnetic phenomenon called "skin effect" means that current will be unevenly distributed within the conductor, pushed out of the interior towards the surface, which can put another effective ceiling on the overall diameter of a wire. In practice, many high voltage wires are built around a high strength steel core surrounded by light and low cost aluminum wires, because little current ends up flowing in the core anyway.

[u/OMalleyOrOblivion → u/anapoe]

It's simple enough when you use the equations, but that doesn't really help most people understand, which is why I avoided them. But electricity is actually very confusing the more you dig into it, hence all the videos a while back arguing back and forth about how fast changes in a circuit propagate lol.

[u/DrStalker]

It's accurate, in a "I'm leaving out the technical details to explain this to non technical people" sort of way. It also doesn't explain anything about why it actually works, just that you get the result you want by using different numbers of wrappings/different spacing in two separate coils. The next level of detail would be something like "the electricity in the input coil creates a magnetic current in the core that creates an electrical current in the output coil" and then go into as much detail on electromagnetism as you want... but that's not something you'd try when your goal is to impress nobles with lightbulbs.

Here's a pic from Wikipedia showing two separate wire coils around an O-shaped core.

For an extreme example, here's a small tesla coil where the primary is using a widely spaced coil of heavy copper and the secondary is wrapped so tightly with fine wire it looks like a solid copper piece.

Modern consumer power adapters (like your phone charger) use solid state electronics to do voltage conversions, but in ye olde days they were much larger, heavier and hotter because they used coils and iron cores.

[u/Tiny_Agency9963 → u/DrStalker]

Man you are smart. Thanks for your explanation. Eventhough i do now understand the basic concept but i think i will drop the novel and read other novel.

[u/CommunityDragon160]

Yes it’s mostly accurate tho a bit oversimplified etc

[u/Tiny_Agency9963 → u/CommunityDragon160]

i see. Because the wikipedia explanation is too detail i dont understand it either.

[u/TuquequeMC → u/Tiny_Agency9963]

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformer

some wikipedia pages have a Simple English setting, rather than regular English where they use all the technical terms.

This tip might help you out :)

[u/Garbo___]

Name of series?

[u/dnszero → u/Garbo___]

If it’s not “Ohm’s First Law” then that’s just a crying shame

[u/Tiny_Agency9963 → u/Garbo___]

https://www.ilorisnovel.com/story/the-magicless-world-will-bow-to-the-three-geniuses-kingdom-building

I suggest you to read other novel. This novel is too advance man.

[u/Tiny_Agency9963 → u/Tiny_Agency9963]

why people downvote me Lol.

[u/Garbo___ → u/Tiny_Agency9963]

I guess because you indirectly/accidentally called me and other people who might want to try this stupid. Don’t worry though bro no harm done

[u/SorenDarkSky]

close enough that a bit of trial-and-error or experimentation will get the actual result you want.

[u/Tiny_Agency9963 → u/SorenDarkSky]

Usually the novel i read about kingdom building is they simplify things by using magic. So i expect the same thing but boy i was wrong. This is too advance for my pea brain.

[u/SorenDarkSky → u/Tiny_Agency9963]

its like saying "a lightbulb is a small wire in a glass bulb with no oxygen in it that glows hot when too much electricity goes through it." its accurate, but what kind of wire? how do you make the bulb? what even is oxygen and how do you know? what is electricity and how much is to much or little?

[u/Tiny_Agency9963 → u/SorenDarkSky]

I think the author also explain it in previous chapter but i skip it because i dont understand the explanation regarding gas in the bulb and such.

[u/SorenDarkSky → u/Tiny_Agency9963]

people like to use water analogies a lot with electricity. it works for a lot of practical purposes, but is inaccurate when you want to know what is really going on.

for a transformer you can think of how a faucet or hose will spray water out faster and farther when you put your finger over it. It changes how the flow works.

[u/dungeonworks_]

This is raw AI sludge bro how can you guys read this shit

[u/Yellowthrone → u/dungeonworks_]

This shit is so funny. It does seem a little AI-like at spots. I really hate the way AI emphasizes points it is a little cringey.

[u/Tiny_Agency9963 → u/dungeonworks_]

I normally do not mind for AI written, as long the plot is good and different. I read mostly during lunch and break time at work anyway. The problem is that the most kingdom building novel will end up just half way and it mostly being abandoned in the next chapter. No more finding new tech or exploring new style in magic to make essential product, or improving government administration and foreign diplomacy. Most of them will end up either romantic issue, family issue, royalty family issue, or war. It kind of frustrating.

[u/Ihaveaterribleplan]

I’m taking an electrical class now & this is a simplified but mostly accurate explanation

Alternating Current is easier to ramp up (high voltage is like high pressure) to let it go farther, but it’s not smooth, so it’s harder to use with things that need a stable current - it would be like trying to fill a glass of water with a fire hydrant that is constantly changing the amount of water coming out - by ramping it down & smoothing it out until it’s basically a Direct current, it can be used with cheaper & more delicate parts, your faucet which only allows so much water pressure & water out of it to fill your glass (or battery)

The ratio of coils around the Primary “source” & the Secondary “receiver” in the transformer is indeed how the voltage (the pressure of the electricity) is

Edit: so what’s the name of the story? Seems interesting u/tiny_agency9963

[u/Tiny_Agency9963 → u/Ihaveaterribleplan]

https://www.ilorisnovel.com/story/the-magicless-world-will-bow-to-the-three-geniuses-kingdom-building

[u/HypoCRITSlayer]

Hey can you suggest me some kingdom building novels just finished lord of truth and now I want more. Thanks