I work with equipment that operates on three phase electrical circuits. I can’t get my head around the concept of “phases.”
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The phase of any wave is describing “where” your peak is (more generally it describes how your wave amplitude changes in time and space but this isn’t an ELI5 explanation anymore). In EE, AC can be described as a wave, so phase is answering the “where is my peak” question. The problem is that this single phase AC now is literally peaking then tumbling to a low then up again. We fix this problem by making more peaks without increasing the peak itself, i.e adding phases.
Extra phases are generated to make the peak occur more often, so 3 phase means you have one repeating peak that is followed by 2 similar repeating peaks. These 3 peaks are evenly spaced out, so from a hectic up and down AC, you get a less steep, hilly one that can much more smoothly and evenly deliver power.
From what I know as a non-EE, these 3 phases are in separate wires to avoid overheating and they need to be connected in the correct order if you’re ever handling these.
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