About the book
Silencing the Fields: A Practical Guide to Reducing AC Magnetic Fields - Edward A. Leeper. Symmetry Books, Boulder, Colorado. First edition 2001; second edition updated for the 2005 National Electrical Code. 340 pages. ISBN 0-9711853-0-1.
This page originally offered sample chapters from the book; the domain once served as its ordering site. The book has been out of print for years, and used copies now trade at collector prices - electricians on the Mike Holt forums were marveling at $425 asking prices as far back as 2014. What follows is a guide to what the book covered and why it is still cited, so that readers who cannot find a copy know what the fuss was about, and readers who can find one know whether they want it.
The author
Edward A. Leeper was a physicist with high-voltage industry experience who, with epidemiologist Nancy Wertheimer, co-authored the 1979 American Journal of Epidemiology paper "Electrical wiring configurations and childhood cancer" - the study that opened the modern research field and gave epidemiology the Wertheimer–Leeper wire code. Unusually for someone at the center of that debate, Leeper remained publicly cautious about health claims; the book takes no alarmist position, and its enduring audience - electricians, building inspectors, audio engineers - values it precisely for that measured tone.
What the book covered
| Part | Subject |
|---|---|
| Fields and where they come from | What AC magnetic fields are; why side-by-side conductors cancel; the crucial concept of net current; why field strength falls off differently for balanced circuits, net currents, and point sources. |
| Measurement | Using consumer gaussmeters; single-axis technique, including Leeper's convention for finding the direction of a field source (still cited in gaussmeter instruction manuals); mapping a house; interpreting readings honestly. |
| Household wiring | How specific wiring errors - improper neutral-ground bonds, interconnected neutrals, miswired multiwire circuits - create net currents, framed against the National Electrical Code; the second edition expanded this for the 2005 NEC. |
| Grounding and plumbing | Why code-required bonding to metal water services lets neighborhood return current flow through household plumbing; what happens when metal water mains are replaced with plastic; how to interrupt pipe currents safely without compromising grounding. |
| Case studies | Worked diagnoses from real houses, including the often-cited "water line job" - following a stubborn field from bedroom readings to a plumbing current and through the coordinated electrician-plumber repair. |
| Power lines and perspective | Fields from distribution and transmission lines; what utilities can and cannot correct; a sober reading of the health evidence and a case for fixing what is cheap to fix. |
The material on this site - net currents, meters, the case against shielding - is a fresh treatment of the same subjects, written for today's reader. It summarizes and builds on the book's approach; it does not reproduce the book's text, which remains the copyright of its author's estate and publisher.
Finding a copy
Used copies surface irregularly on Amazon, AbeBooks, and BetterWorldBooks - prices swing wildly, so patience pays. Library copies can be located through WorldCat, and interlibrary loan remains the cheapest way to actually read it. The record is also on Open Library. If a reissue or authorized electronic edition ever appears, this page will say so.