I have been a practicing electrical engineer for over 50 years and am currently involved in building two power plants in Israel. It is my observation that previous and current poskim did not and do not have a clear idea of how electricity is generated, distributed and used, or even what it is. The best, understanding, albeit still flawed, was that of R’ Shlomo Zalman, ZTL. The problem is that these Gedolim have to rely on “experts’ to explain the metzius and the technical details of the issue to be decided. That requires a basic level of specific knowledge, often lacking, to understand what the “expert” is saying. This leads to fundamental errors. As a simple example, I have seen articles and Piskei Teshuva that refer to a “flow of electrons” This is not correct. Electrons don’t flow. The remain in their in their respective atoms. What flows is the energy transmitted from atom to atom varying the energy state of the electrons in the process. Tis creates a varying magnetic field around the conductor in which the energy actually flows. This, and other misunderstandings, have resulted in, what i consider, erroneous psakim, or correct psakim for the wrong reasons.
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