Q: While hopping around the bedroom pulling on a sock, at the moment I stretched the sock over my foot, the nearby TV went into standby mode. I assume that static electricity was picked up by the infrared sensor. Is this possible and has anyone had similar experiences?
A: There are two reasons why it鈥檚 highly unlikely that your sock turned your telly off. First, remote controls send infrared beams to the TV by pulses. The various sequences of pulses correspond to different actions such as changing a channel, or turning up the brightness. The chances of your sock causing the same pulse sequence as the one for standby is remote.
Second, there are two different physical processes going on. The static electricity of your sock is caused by the movement of electrons between the fabrics. The infrared beam of a remote control is just electromagnetic energy 鈥� the transfer of photons.
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So something else caused the TV to go into standby mode. Perhaps your TV has a timer which was preset by someone. Or maybe someone was hiding in your closet with the remote control, waiting for you to remove your sock so they could turn the TV to standby 鈥�
A: The TV鈥檚 reversion to standby is more likely caused by the questioner hopping around. Modern receivers owe their reliability to the reduced number of interconnections (plugs, sockets, soldered joints) and are typically much less sensitive to vibration than models of 15 to 20 years ago. However, the connection of the mains flex at the plug (sometimes carelessly done and often loosened by enthusiastic vacuuming) can be more sensitive. For safety and economy, TVs are designed to enter standby mode if already switched on when power is applied and even a short interruption of the supply will cause this to happen when power is restored.
Most TVs remember which channel was selected when switched to standby but revert to channel one when switched off and on, so this theory would be supported if the questioner could confirm that the TV had switched to BBC1 when it left standby mode.
From my own experience, hopping around while trying to put on a sock is dangerous. For greatest comfort, one should buy woollen socks (no static) and sit down to put them on.