Meta-Alternating Current
It's always bothered me that you can't cancel out an inverter by putting a second inverter after it.
It's always bothered me that you can't cancel out an inverter by putting a second inverter after it.
This is the sixth installment in the series of Cursed Connectors and presents Cursed Connectors #120: Meta-alternating current extension cord. It follows 2589: Outlet Denier (#78) after about 4 months and was followed about 1.5 years later by 2880: Sheet Bend (#46).
Direct current is a unidirectional flow of electrons from a power source to something being powered, through one or more conductors, before returning to the power source via one or more other conductors, thus completing the circuit. Batteries produce direct current. It is commonly used in electronics applications, including computers. Alternating current, on the other hand, frequently reverses the direction of electron flow, and is commonly used for longer-distance transmission (such as from the power plant to an outlet).
This comic proposes a humorous Meta-Alternating Current, which uses a series of adapters to "alternate" between DC and AC current along the length of a connector. This is absurd in part because typical power inverter efficiency is 90%, and maximum bridge rectifier efficiency is about 99% for 120 V,[actual citation needed] so an extension cord made in this manner would lose about 11% power (compounded) per such pair. For the wire shown in the comic, with seven pairs, the efficiency would be 0.897, which is 0.45, that is, 45%.
The title text bemoans that an inverter, which converts direct current to alternating current, does not work in the other direction, as a layman's interpretation of the word "inverter" might assume. Rather, a separate device, a rectifier, also pictured in the comic, must be used for this second conversion. (However, a similar circuit to an inverter may be used to rectify in a process called active rectification.)