Dave Barry Quotes

Today's scientific question is: What in the world is electricity? And where does it go after it leaves the toaster?

Electricity was a reality in the universe when Moses led the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt. This is true of all natural laws; they have always existed but only when understood may they be used.

Electricity is really just organized lightning.

Electricity is of two kinds, positive and negative. The difference is, I presume, that one comes a little more expensive, but is more durable; the other is a cheaper thing, but the moths get into it.

Notwithstanding my experiments with electricity the thunderbolt continues to fall under our noses and beards; and as for the tyrant, there are a million of us still engaged at snatching away his sceptre.

If anyone should doubt whether the electrical matter passes through the substance of bodies, or only over along their surfaces, a shock from an electrified large glass jar, taken through his own body, will probably convince him.

There's a metal train that a mile long and at the very back end a lightning bolt struck her. How long til it reaches and kills the driver, provided that he's a good conductor?

Most American homes have alternating current, which means that the electricty goes in one direction for a while, then goes in the other direction. This prevents harmful electron buildup in the wires.

Ohm (a distinguished mathematician, be it noted) brought into order a host of puzzling facts connecting electromotive force and electric current in conductors, which all previous electricians had only succeeded in loosely binding together qualitatively under some rather vague statements. Even as late as 20 years ago, "quantity" and "tension" were much used by men who did not fully appreciate Ohm's law.

Fortunately, I've also been an electrician, and that's a happy memory for me.

What I view life like is about energy. Everything is about energy - everything. We physically are little units of electrical energy, and we vibrate and project electromagnetic thought.

A lot of words in English confuse the idea of life and electricity, like the word livewire.

We wind a simple ring of iron with coils; we establish the connections to the generator, and with wonder and delight we note the effects of strange forces which we bring into play, which allow us to transform, to transmit and direct energy at will.

I was training to be an electrician. I suppose I got wired the wrong way round somewhere along the line.

I fell in love with electricity.

We call that fire of the black thunder-cloud "electricity," and lecture learnedly about it, and grind the like of it out of glass and silk: but what is it? What made it? Whence comes it? Whither goes it?

What do batteries run on?

You cannot receive a shock unless you have an electric affinity for that which shocks you.

You get much more heat when you do something current.

Nicola Tesla didn't say, 'I have to make wireless electricity!' The brain does not work that way.

Lightning seems a thought, which instead of being attached to a brain, is attached to an electric current.

Electricity is the power that causes all natural phenomena not known to be caused by something else

Science is not the enemy of humanity but one of the deepest expressions of the human desire to realize that vision of infinite knowledge. Science shows us that the visible world is neither matter nor spirit; the visible world is the invisible organization of energy.

When the lightning strikes but one, not one only does it terrify.

I guess I make things that need energy stronger. I'm like a walking battery.