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The Origin of Positive Earth?

To: triumphs@autox.team.net
Subject: The Origin of Positive Earth?
From: Chip19474@aol.com
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 12:26:19 EDT
Humble Listees:

Yet another early morning automotive conversation before work with my 
comrades and another unresolved question.....this morning's dilemma is:

Why was positive earth (ground) "used first" - later changed to negative 
grounding? 

My colleagues seem to think it had something to do with the fact that the 
earth is positively charged with respect to naturally balanced negatively 
charged clouds so why not comply with nature and make our cars normally 
positively charged.  I figured that the decision had something to do with 
electron flow versus current flow for spark plugs.....it's better (that's as 
scientific as I can be) to have a spark originating from the centre electrode 
of a sparkplug to control the explosion blast which it would if you believed 
that a spark starts from the negative side of 2 electrodes.  'Course, that 
argument doesn't hold up with today's neg grounding systems.

So, maybe positive earth got it's start purely from coincidence.....the 
positive battery post of the first production car just happened to be close 
to the frame so the assembly crew connected it home!!

Chip Krout
'76 TR6 CF57822U (Being Reborn For Y2K)
'70 Spit MkIII  FDU78512L (Decent Driver) 

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