Cecil Moore wrote:
John Popelish wrote:

If there is a standing wave on a wire, and you have a tiny current
transformer sensor you can slide along the wire, you can measure the
instantaneous current (or the RMS) at any point along the wire. If
the sensor sits at a single point and sees an AC current, you have no
way, from this one measurement, if this current is the result of a
standing wave (two oppositely traveling equal waves adding), or a
single traveling wave, or any combination of traveling waves of
different amplitudes. You know only the net current at that point.


But if one it smart enough to slide the sensor up and down the wire
and note the phase is fixed and unchanging, one knows he is dealing
with a standing wave.

Another point, entirely. My point is that current has a point
definition, and standing wave current is certainly indistinguishable
from traveling wave current, at a point. Current is current.

Patterns of current over length is another subject. But you keep
saying that there is something different about current in a standing
wave. There isn't. It is the pattern of current distribution over
time and distance along a conductor that is different with a standing
wave.

It is a nit, but it is snagging other people in the discussion, too,
so I thought it would help to clear it up.