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Statically Charged Man Ignites Office
Call Me Black Cloud writes "And you think your coworker with BO is annoying? In this story carried by Reuters, a man wearing a nylon jacket over a wool shirt built up such a static charge that he left a trail of scorched carpet and melted plastic in his wake. After he melted plastic in his car he sought help from firefighters called to the scene, who measured his static field at 40,000 volts." Obviously, despite the fact that this is carried by Reuters, you should take some of the 'facts' presented here with some NaCl.
Obviously, despite the fact that this is carried by Reuters, you should take some of the 'facts' presented here with some NaCl.
He lit up his office with a 40k static field. What the hell is salt going to do with that? Let's find out. Talk about putting salt in his wounds.
The article says this level of current is just shy of spontaneous combustion. Maybe spontaneous human combustion is a misnomer? How many people actually have scientifically studied people who have combusted, spontaneously, before? I'm thinking that since it appears to be caused by a prolonged rubbing effect, from wool sweaters rubbing against nylon jackets, and charged by static from carpets, there is nothing spontaneous about it at all, and perhaps SHC is therefore no longer a mystery?
Did we find bigfoot?
Wikipedia has a cool page about spontaneous human combustion.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Its electrifying stories like this that keep me reading slashdot.
-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+ *** http://www.mountainfort.com *** +-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-
There's about 40,000 volts in my FR1ST Ps0T111 booyeahhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!! arrrrrrrr
News!
--
I had something similar happen to me. Replace static electricity with gas, and scorch marks with skid marks.
Any authoritative debunkings yet? Seems like there wouldn't have been any static charge left after he'd already zapped the carpet...
Eletrical Current is measued in Amps, not Volts.
That alone is enough to make me seriously doubt this whole business.
morcego
Statically Charged Man Ignites Office
There goes one half of Microsoft's monopo-- Oh, wait a minute...
Something online might not be true? Shocking!
This guy could get a pretty good job as a generator in New Orleans. I don't want to know where they put the plugs though.
I'm agneglectic, too lazy to care if there is a God.
future Mythbusters in the works...
Now I know what to buy a number of family and friends for Xmas.
Minutes of Warnambool City Council meeting:
1. Make up BS story about "static" man
2. Put Warnambool on map.
3. Tourism
4. Profit
If someone will travel to bumphuk, nowhere to see the virgin mary in someones month old pea soup, they might travel to Warnambool to meet "static man".
40,000 volts is only enough to generate a few microamps over a small gap in the air. Air has a huge resistance. There's no way 40,000 volts could cause that much damage. From a quick internet search, it appears even a simple van de graff generator would create over 75,000 volts, and that's fairly harmless.
The reports are also inconsistent. The AP is saying it was 30kV, Reuters is saying 40kV.
It is my understanding that something can have a charge of many thousands (or more) volts, and yet have little to no effect on anything if there is an extremely small ammount of amps.
doesn't need batteries anymore for her toys.
Karma: a simple way of silencing those with unpopular views regardless how correct or just that view might be.
Just say salt, don't be so fucking pretentious.
Is that yes: he did have a static charge, and did arc a bit. I used to drive a company car which did this to me all the time. Painful as hell.
But the scorch marks could have been there for a long time. Perhaps this was the ideal opportunity to cover up for some office hijinks?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Hey, it's Carpeted Man from The Tick!s hcarp.html
http://www.cs.rose-hulman.edu/~stinerkt/tickdocs/
If it's a hoax, it's fooled a lot of people.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
It's a dupe of the 25 year old 3M factory article which got pulled by one of the editors in the end. Only in that case someone in a factory "discovered a forcefield".
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
fucking associated press
http://the.standard.net.au/articles/2005/09/16/112 6750111141.html
What?
See, this is why immediate disclosure isn't a great idea. Now the terrorists have a new weapon. Run for your lives! And don't buy synthetic nylon and wool on the same day, or the feds will lock you up for terrorism!
From TFA: "There he found that a plastic bag used to protect his seat from water after surfing was badly charred beneath his feet."
I am a surfer, but never ever have I put plastic bags on my feet after surfing to protect my feet from water. That makes no sence at all. Don't beleive the hype.
I'm sure this news comes as a shock to many of us here!
"The newly born animals are then whisked off for a quick run through a giant baking oven." --heard on Food Network
40kV isn't hard to build up. In fact, you can safely play with hundreds of kV, and make some really nice sparks. The 'starting things on fire' number you're looking for is power. And energy. You need to be able to transfer enough energy into an object that it will reach its combustion temperature, and you need to be quick enough at it that the object doesn't shed the energy to nearby objects in the meantime. It takes a lot of energy (as compared to the energy content in your average static 'zap') to set carpet fibers aflame, or even melt them.
Not to say that it didn't happen, of course. It's just not well-reported, and is clearly not terribly common.
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
Brand names....I need brand names people! Err...for science!
Would FAA ban wollen/nylon clothing on planes???
Did this really need to be /.ed? Is this to be taken tongue in cheek, or did some jackoff really think this warranted the front page? I don't see any emoticons so I can't tell if this is serious or not. SOMEONE ADD A SMILEY!!!!!!111one
First of all the article states that they measured a current of 40,000 volts. . . Second 40,000 volts isn't unreasonable, its current that kills. Lightning has a voltage 1-2 orders of magnitude higher, and people frequently survive lightning strikes. 3rd Ever done a demo with a Van de Graaf generator??? ~100,000 Volts. Watch out, hundreds of school children are in danger of spontaneously combusting!
"We tested his clothes with a static electricity field meter and measured a current of 40,000 volts..."
;)
Last time I checked, the unit for current is Ampers, not Volts. Volts measure the potential for current, not current itself. Besides, a static feild has no current... because it's static.
Anyway, it's too bad he doesn't work on computers, I'd love to see his anti-static bracelet. I think #00 gauge welding cable would handle it.
This sig rocks the casbah.
...energy source. Maybe he could power his computer?
... fireman carry voltmeters now?
This is prime material for photography. melted burned destroyed stuff.. it's the ultimate ratings grab stupidity-fest! why are there no pictures? probably because it's not real.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Muahahhaaaahaaa
http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_ page/0,5936,16628269%255E1702,00.html
This one has some differing details, ie 30kV as compared to 40kV.
It's a Bagel.
I seriously doubt that the energy of two fabrics rubbing could ever make a sound approaching that of a firecracker. Although I will most certainly regret including this link, This makes a sound like a firecracker. Anyone whose clothes could hold enough charge at enough voltage to mimic that would be of great scientific interest...
A static electricity field meter is something firefighters bring with them? That sounds awfully suspect.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
going to get rid of all my rugs in the house.
I like my nylon jacket and wool shirts way to much.
In other news NASA breathes a sigh of relief as someone has finally screwed up units in a more embarassing manner. When asked about mistaking current and voltage in the article, the news editor responded "Sorry I don't have time for questions, I have to drive to a town 3 gigabits over. It'll take me at least 5 ohms to make the trip"
This guy was just below the threshold at 40,000 volts.
this 775,000 volt stun gun must turn a person to ash.
http://www.safetygearhq.com/stunmaster775.htm
i think it is the report is vague and the possibility is so infinitesimal
Muzik.4.Machines
I'll still wait for the official Snopes lowdown on this one...
(How could he have gone through his day like that without touching anything metal, like a doorknob or his car door?)
"firefighters called to the scene, who measured his static field at 40,000 volts"
Yes, firefighters carry around static field meters next to their o'scopes, cold fusion reactors, and other necessary gear.
Static electricity only appears in materials that cannot move electrons well, so even a high voltage (much energy per electron) does not mean a lot of energy that can be released.
Also, the energy in rubbing can never exceed the force multiplied by the distance in the direction of the force. The amount of continuous heat that can be generated by static electricity from rubbing, is at the same level of the heat produced by walking in other types of clothes.
Hey, it could happen. If "journalists" can post something like this, can we really expect better from jihadi? :P
The Mythbusters crew!
What could cause a person to get repeatedly shocked? I ask this from personal experience, my 2nd semester of college I was receiving well over 50 shocks(of various intensity) per WEEK. Didn't matter what I wore or were I was, I would get shcoked. On staircases, metal parts of chairs, the freezer in the cafeteria etc. It got so bad that I was constantly grounding myself with the back of my hand(hurts a lot less than the front of the hand). It got so bad my roomate could hear the cracking sound. I once even tried to beat it by touching the metal part of my pencil against a door, and that made an awesome blue spark. However, anything like that never happened before that semester or since.... What could have caused it?
Monstar L
Static electricity is always in the thousands of volts. That's not the least bit surprising. What would be interesting, but is not listed is the current: how many amps was he running through the plastics? That's the only thing which could explain melting plastic...
Our local telephone directory service unambiguously lists the person named in the Warrnambool Standard article linked in the parent.
Maybe the knee jerk skeptics from Zonk down could back up their skepticism with some fact checking, but I guess that is asking a bit much.
-- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
[nt]
Where was Barton when he heard these sounds? Wouldn't Mr Clewphone^H^H^H^H^Her have heard them sooner? Why did he ignore them?
* Clewer, who after leaving the building discovered he had scorched a piece of plastic on the floor of his car, returned to seek help from the firefighters.
What an amazing coincidence that he went back! They never would have figured it out otherwise.
* "We tested his clothes with a static electricity field meter and measured a current of 40,000 volts, which is one step shy of spontaneous combustion, where his clothes would have self-ignited," [fire official] Barton said.
I wonder if MY local firehouse has a static electrictiy field meter!? and I'd be curious i anyone knows if this alleged spontaneous combustion / voltage relationship holds any water.
*DESPITE* it being on Reuters?
:-/
How about, BECAUSE?
I mean, this *IS* Reuters we're talking about here.
More detail here. Apparently an ABC journalist verified that there were burn marks on the carpet.
:wq
"The device measured a remarkable 30,000 volts on a synthetic zip-up jacket Mr Clewer had been wearing under a woollen jacket."
Would you like to give more detail on this device the firefighters so happened to have which they used to measure the electric potential on a jacket? I can't think of any devices that can measure the voltage between two non-conductors. Also, a potential difference (volt) needs to be with respect to something. Was it with respect to ? A -30,000 volt wire or something?
The air 4 feet off the ground has an electric potential of 130 volts or so, but it's a pain to measure, and no machine can quickly do this.
This is obviously a hoax. I wonder how many people are getting dumber by reading slashdot. (Like on April Fools... hehe) News for Nerds: Suff that Matters. Disclamer: read with caution.
For a minute, I thought it must be April first.
Today's show is brought to you by the number 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0: 25
I would say "given the fact." My opinion of the media must be a lot lower than yours.
"Static electricity is a similar mechanism to lightning, where you have clouds rubbing together and then a spark generated by very dry air above them,"
:)
;-}) As far as I know the reason we humans conduct electricity well is because our body contains electrolytic salts dissolved in our bodily fluids, they aid the flow of current, which brings me to another question is sea water a better conductor than fresh water...
Errm, yeh, right, clouds rubbing together LOL, kindof gives it away big time
Just for those who aint in the know this is NOT how lightning is generated, as a rough description; lightning is formed by the potential energy difference between the top and bottom of the cloud stack, the taller the cloud stack the more potential energy the more impressive the lightning storm, clouds are just like big batteries really...
Like most posters have said, its amps that do damage not volts, 200 amps at 12 volts could kill you, 0.001 amps at 75,000 volts will just give you a small jolt and yes in the right circumstances this can cause fire, I've seen demonstrations involving static igniting petrol fumes but I think for the spark from the static discharge to be capable of burning the carpet you would need a lot more than 40Kv and a reasonable amount of current in order to generate a fat enough spark to create combustion, 13 amps at 240 volts will burn skin because the current flows from the power line through your body (to ground) but static has no discernable current hence nothing flows when the discharge occurs and for another thing, are there any carpets out there which will conduct electricity (i.e. carry a current) ? Not as far as I know unless the carpet was wet of course (water is a reasonable conductor) but then burning would not occur... Current of course being the flow of electrons, thats why we use metals for wiring, they are good conductors and allow the electrons to flow freely (which is also why there are issues with sharp angles in the pathways on multi gigahertz PCB's - the electrons are going too fast to turn the corner
OK, now sum1 shoot me before I get carried away and my head explodes...
He doesn't happen to fly around on a glowing man hole cover does he?
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
I'm a firefighter in the US and I've never heard of this piece of equipment. I'm guessing if this story gets any more press we'll be carrying one on all of our apparatus by week's end. ;)
Quickly pull off about 3 feet of scotch tape and it swings up to stick to your arm. Measure that static (with an 'infinite' impedance voltmeter) and there's about 50,000 volts. Not likely to set an office on fire though but it might zap a sensitive IC.
Digg posted this story over a day ago. http://digg.com/science/Man_builds_up_30,000_volts _of_static_electricity
Anything from Reuters should be taken with a grain of salt. That goes double for any newspaper or website with a majority of Reuters content.
They mention "volts running through X" in several places (which makes no sense because voltage is like pressure; it does not move). They mention voltage (a different number than in the other article) but nothing about how that could result in burns.
:) Similarly, static electricity sounds scary because it easily runs in the thousands of volts... but the voltage is not refreshed. Once it is discharged it is gone. And discharge at that voltage happens by leakage in the air, through his feet, etc. It could not create temperatures that high over that large an area.
:p
You actually create insanely hot temperatures when you scuff your feet on a floor. You do melt the carpet doing that, but only the top few layers of molecules
Another way to look at is is where is this energy coming from? Movement of his arms while he walks. Just how much energy is in the movement of your arms? Not a lot. If this were true he should be tied down and forced to create electricity for a small city. Converting food to electricity with his magical clothes would be so cheap compared to any other power source.
Fire in the disco
Fire in the taco bell
Fire in the disco
Fire in the gates of hell
Don't you want to know how we keep starting fires?
It's my desire, It's my desire, It's my desire
Don't you want to know how we keep starting fires?
It's my desire, It's my desire, It's my desire
Danger! Danger! High Voltage!
When we touch, When we kiss
Danger! Danger! High Voltage!
When we touch, when we kiss
When we touch
Danger! Danger! High Voltage!
When we touch, When we kiss
Danger! Danger! High Voltage!
When we touch, when we kiss
When we touch, when we kiss
Don't you want to know how we keep starting fires?
It's my desire, It's my desire
Don't you want to know how we keep starting fires?
It's my desire, It's my desire
Danger! Danger! High Voltage!
When we touch, When we kiss
Danger! Danger! High Voltage!
When we touch, when we kiss
When we touch
Danger! Danger! High Voltage!
When we touch, When we kiss
Danger! Danger! High Voltage!
When we touch, when we kiss
When we touch, when we kiss
No more
Fire in the disco
Fire in the disco
Fire in the taco bell
Fire in the disco
Fire in the disco
Fire in the gates of Hell
Gates of Hell
40kV? Thats not even a jigawatt.
http://slashdot.su/
After reaching 88 MPH, he left burn marks in the carpet, and somehow generated 1.21 gigawatts, which in turn, caused all the toilets to spin the other way, which in turn caused this story to smell like horseshit.
Aw, Hell Its a Friday Night!
To elaborate on what the parent poster said, assume the capacitance of the human body is 10 pF (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor). Using the equation: E = 0.5*C*V^2, a potential difference of 40kV only gives a maximum of 0.016 Joule of energy. That's not a lot of energy. Assuming the discharge happens over 1 millisecond, this would result in a power of 16 Watt, which is obviously insufficient to ignite someone.
Unless the person was standing in a convenient fuel-air mixture, it is unlikely they spontaneously combusted due to electrostatic discharge.
I'm not saying it's true, but having seen (and felt) 2 inch bolts of static from wandering around in 3% humidity .... I can really see this is feasible.
Time for a Mythbusters Episode....
EMail: 0110001101100010010000000110001101110010 0110000101111010011011100110000101110010 0010111001100011011011110110
"We tested his clothes with a static electricity field meter and measured a current of 40,000 volts, which is one step shy of spontaneous combustion, where his clothes would have self-ignited"
Do firefighters in Australia carry ESD meters now? Wow, I thought they only carried can openers.
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
Had a special where they debunked Spontaneous Human combustion. One plausible theory seemed to be the "human wick" theory. Basicly you fall asleep smoking, the cloth/clothes around you catch fire, you are knocked unconcious by the fumes, the clothes act as a wick burning up the fat in your body, often only the legs remain due to less fat an no cloth on them (old ladies are frequent wictims to this) Also, bones burn due to the fact that a lot of the old ladies have ostoperosis.
A computer is a tool, but I am not. I use Linux
I Can't wait for the mythbusters episodeL:)
A computer is a tool, but I am not. I use Linux
What does he think clouds are? Huge masses of flying cotton ?
Yepperz.. Ole Sparky Clewer ! What a prankster ! He used to embarrass the female teachers buy making their vibrators turn on and jump out of their purses onto the desk ! Ole Sparkster...
Remember folks; the Mainstream Media is superior to Bloggers due to their layers of fact checking editors and professional reporters. All who have been professionally trained and do this stuff for a living!
Far superior when compared to some guy sitting in his pajamas in his living room.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
A Van De Graaf generator is basically a band of insulating material being rotated in a tower with some means of transferring a charge to it. There are relatively cheap desktop and home models that'll produce nearly half a million volts. Schools use such devices all the time, so if the fireman hasn't seem a voltage that high, he skipped classes.
Having said that, early atom-smashers used Van De Graaf generators only capable of producing five million or so volts. It seems reasonable to suspect something will burn before it is blasted out of existence. So, somewhere between 400,000 volts and 5,000,000 volts, you might be able to ignite something.
However, here we get a problem. You can't just carry around half a million volts and not notice it. Your hair tends to stand on end, for a start. ANYTHING metal - even a doorknob - will cause a discharge to occur. Getting into his car certainly would have - even if the car were carbin-fiber, the key would be metal and the distance short enough for an arc to occur.
There's also the problem of where you lodge a charge that great. A capacitor is basically two electrostatic devices with an insulator between them. In this case, the insulator would be the shoes, and the electrostatic device the person. I'll assume there are enough nails holding the carpet down to act as the other electrostatic device.
But what is the capacitance of a person? The figure I've been able to get with a Google search is an average of 204 pF with a typical range of 95 to 398 pF. (It varies according to height and weight, so a seven-foot sumo wrestler might have a higher capacitance than this range shows.)
In other words, not really what you'd need to carry half a million volts around. The jacket would have carried more, but unless it was made of Tantallum or some other material with very high capacitance, I doubt you'd be able to store enough charge to start setting things on fire.
In other words, there is nothing credible about the story. The voltages are abnormally low for a static device and way too low to actually do any fire damage, there's nowhere a higher charge could have been stored and there would have been too many points at which positively violent arcing would have occurred if it had been stored.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
It sounds like you're in serious need of some anti-static dryer sheets. If you're still in a college environment, these things also have another great use. Toss wrinkled clothes into the dryer with an anti-static sheet and a damp paper towel. In about 5 minutes, the clothes will be wrinkle-free, as if you'd ironed them.
Hmmm, I wonder what repeditive motion made with the upper part of his body would have lead to such a build-up. Also in related news, the man has RSI in his wrists!
"I'm going to f***ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f***ing kill Google"
Who can deny that this also sounds like a firecracker.
Soylent DHMO is water!!
The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
There is another link to this story on the ABC.
I wouldn't discount this story out of hand. It's been very dry in Australia lately, and I have been getting shocks quite often. I have on many occasion got a zap when touching my car or closing the garage do. Once (a few days ago) while in the process of shaking hands, we even heard the crack. It is painful.
So, I think this story is not exagerated. Afterall, they even called in the CFS.
He made some scorch marks ... that's hardly ingition, is it?
Screw the FSM - Real geeks believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn
If leaping to conclusions were an Olympic event, Slashdot would be the home of a large number of gold medal holders.
When I was in Jr. High School I had an insulated synthetic jacket made of some material like nylon or rayon. One day the elevator in my apartment building was painted with some goopy paint with texture thingies in it. Afteward I noticed that I was sometimes shocked when touching the metal door to leave at my destination floor. I put two and two together and figured it must be my jacket touching the elevator walls. The elevator was quite small and it was difficult to be in it in a bulky jacket without the jacket touching anything.
So I slid along the wall, rubbing the jacket against the paint, then touched the metal control panel. (SNAP!) Ouch! I got out my keys and tried it again, using a key to touch the panel. I still felt it in my hand but it was no longer actually painful.
This became a game for the rest of the winter on my departures in the morning to go to school and my arrivals back from school in the afternoons. I tried to see how big a spark I could generate from the tip of the key to the elevator panel.
I didn't carry a ruler but I'd estimate the largest sparks were a good quarter-inch, and they were very hot. The color was white and they made a loud SNAP. Discharging one through a finger was wayyyyy painful.
The point is... while I have no idea what really happened in the incident reported in the article, all the people here claiming one or more wild-assed theories why a jacket couldn't be involved in generating significant static charge are talking through their assholes. I had a jacket that produced very painful static discharges and for all I know the combination of materials in the jacket and the elevator paint may not even have been optimal for generating such charges.
If I still had the jacket and the elevator I'd offer to demonstrate serious static jacket charge by discharging it to the corneas of the ignorant skeptics. That would be a hoot... "(rub-rub-rub) OK, look closely at this key..." SNAP! "YEOW-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow!"
Look at the bright side: there's always seppuku.
1 the jacket being like me. Only sections discharge at a time. Ie lining sections I would guess be acting like as caps.
2 The combination had to be one heck of a static creator. Ie moving charging. Most likely the Discharing to carpet kept him kinda safe.
Any one who ever been highly charged will tell you that you can zap 10 to 20 times without fully discharging. With control over body all can be the same size zaps.
3 Simple num fingers. Burn or over used remove the required sence of feel. Or no current flow to fingers. Don't say this cannot be done. I have been holding onto a earth in one hand and zaping a person with the other to my school teachers confusion. And the hair rasing experment I was only allowed to do once. After I walked meant to been discharaged walked access the room and zap a person who and been poking fun at me. Important factors lower salt content and slightly low Iron content. Lowers body conductive means and allows current carrying also low amount of sweet and humidty.
I speek for people zaping me in the computer room for fun. Some of my friends did not understand why I want all them to zap me on partical points. Under 5 mm zapx50 for me to give 1x40mm return zap. Yes it hurts(the 40mm zip hurts the zaper and the zapee. I would not recommend it and don't think a ring will save you it will make it worse because to release more Volts quicker) but boy does it scare the crap out of people they stop zaping people now as a zaper hide the pain then they get really scared. Mind over body if you can control you body you can control where current flows for about 95%. Now if jacket is coping me its really dangerous because 40000 V could be only part of the charge. A combied bolt could be a lot more.
My bodys annoying means of holding charge cost me alot of disks these days I normally wear stuff that will not build charge. The day that floppy are no more it will be good.
Those that think this is a hoax better think again. There were some brief interviews with very sober looking office workers (the guy was there for a job interview) as well as the fire brigade officer that attended. There were obvious, though small, scorch marks on the carpet.
He had a synthetic (nylon??) jacket over a woolen jumper apparently. Assuming it was a day with 0% humidity it is all quite possible
Perhaps you meant because the story is carried by Reuters it shouldn't be taken seriously?
anyone read the line at the bottom?
"Static electricity is a similar mechanism to lightning, where you have clouds rubbing together and then a spark generated by very dry air above them" .
It's supposed to be from "a senior lecturer in electrical engineering at Sydney University".
I'm trying to understand it in such a way that it makes sense.
I thought charge separation was caused by vertical currents separating ice crystals from water droplets in clouds.
40kV is not the issue here. As noted in earlier posts, it is the AMPS not the volts, that count. And if he discharged enough amps to make something combust, he would be a dead man, since 6 milliamps is enough to kill you. Lightning can be as much as 100 MEGAvolts and people sometimes survive that. Obviously the current is going to be a little bit higher than 6 mAmp.
would have the title "hazardous carpet can self-ignite from static discharge." Static discharges easily leave tiny burn marks. But these shouldn't spread. That a guy causes particularly heavy static discharges is cute, but if you don't compare it to what happens commonly, the article stinks. And this article stinks more than a heavily statically charged man letting one fly.
I figured I'd have a hard time since, to be considered scientific, experiments should be repeatable and I couldn't imagine a way to repeat it after the guy was burnt to death.
Anyway I went on and asked some 35 guys (statistical magic number, don't ask) if they would spontaneously participate in an experiment involving combustion which would leave them charred.
I got many interesting answers but, on average, they were basically "Hell, no!".
So, with enough empyrical evidence, I concluded that there's no spontaneous combustion.
...wearing a woolen shirt and a synthetic nylon jacket...
As opposed to a natural nylon jacket, made from the finest virgin Icelandic nylon harvested from the nests of shore birds.
I figure by 2030 or so my 6-digit UID will be something to brag about.
Hey think about it... this could actually work ! Get everyone on the planet to wear nylon jackets. Once every few hours we earth ourselves directly into the power grid. If you then made illegalised cars and made everyone ride motorbikes or push bikes think of the potential !!
Sure a few people might spontaneously combust every now and then, a couple of occasional fires.... but wouldn't that cost be worth saving the environment for ?
Yes, stay away from that Dihydrogen Monoxide stuff!
If you really do have to imbibe, we all know that Hydronium Hydroxil is MUCH safer!
OK... this is a nonsense story. 40 kV is voltage, not current. You can build up 40 kV every time you walk on a nylon carpet, or you rub against a cat's skin. We have all had sparks pass between our hand and our keyboard we sit down, or with the wall when we have had rubber shoes on.
(Tip: this is annoying, but just touch the wall with a key and you'll not feel the spark.)
Voltage is not dangerous "unless". To spark a fire you need not just voltage, but current as well. A 30 kV spark discharge from your hand at 0.1 uA (micro-ampere) would do a lot less harm than a 30 kV powerline at 100 Amps (the latter would incinerate you instantly).
To set a carpet on fire you would need quite a lot of current. If this carpet was set on fire by a shirt (how, by the way: was he rubbing his chest on the floor?), then it was a weird carpet fire waiting to happen anyway.
But of course this makes a cute story to fill an otherwise empty page. Myths always do.
---
BDOS ERR ON A:>
Maybe it's time to build a reactor based on this effect?
MSEE = MicroSoft Engineering Enhancment?
The guy basically describes himself as a walking leyden jar with automatic charger. Shazaam!
A similar effect is often seen in the winter in northern climes. People with fuzzy sweaters and woolen clothing wearing nylon parkas. They shock the heck out of themselves getting in and out of their cars with the nylon weave cushion covers.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
i fondly remember the tick's animated series and although it was awhile ago, there was a superhero who's sole power was wearing a carpet and shuffling around :D
..."because of" not "despite."
re: Obviously, despite the fact that this is carried by Reuters, you should take some of the 'facts' presented here with some NaCl.
sig has been sent away for a few small repairs...
That is a hilarious punchline for that post.
FOX News is reporting that Special Agent Fox Mulder and his partner Dana Scully will be headed to Australia to begin a formal investigation.
Next we can scrap nuclear power plants for statically charged employees, maybe this could be a new meaning for running the circuit :)
The typical outcome is a small shock no worse that what you get after sliding over a car seat on a cold, dry morning, and touching the car door latch on your way out.
We used to produce 50" wide x 40 mil polystyrene rollstock at 50 FPM, and it would sometimes be necessary to troubleshoot in the area. Every so often you'd get zapped ... up to 5" long "bolts" ... in this case, very uncomfortable, and nerve-rattling, but none of us exploded into flame.
The only truly dangerous ES potentials were when a worn through section of 3" diameter aluminum pipe (used in a material scrap suction system to feed roll trim back to a grinder) was replaced with PVC by someone who didn't know better. End result was a Vandergraff generator of significant potential, and ended up knocking the guy off his feet later in the day when feeding ribbon into it.
40 kV? A trail of melted carpet? C'mon!
Call mythbusters.
But it does bring up a question I have been wondering about. It does seem that some people carry more of a charge than others. That is some people consistantly burn out chips when they touch them in a rude fasion but it is very hard for me to do the same. Is this through habbits of touching grounded things like Tony Shelwhatshisface in Monk or is there some chemical thing going on that makes us noticably different?
Is there training and can I learn to start fires by touch as well? Also what does KERNEL PANICK mean. Is that bad? I think I am having one.
I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
I just have to say this..........guess he has an electric personality?
Thats what they get for taking the man's stapler. :P
As soon as I saw the headline I knew this had to have been posted by Zonk. Way to go!
Another way would be to store charge on a plate capacitor. By pulling the plates away from each other, the capacity C goes down. Because C in C=Q/V goes down and obviously the charge Q stays, V should go up. Maybe this is cheating a bit, because the field strength (E=V/distance) will not increase I think, but still it is easy to build up a high voltage.
hundreds of people spontaneously combust every year - it's just not widely reported, that's all.
And pictures of the carpet burns and interviews with witnesses. No it is nowhere near April.
Slashdot: Where nerds gather to pool their ignorance
40,000 volts is actually not much. In fact, I'd say it's easy to build up that much static charge (Van DeGraff generator, anyone?) But Back To The Future Shoes? Come on. And what is this "40,000 volts is one step shy of spontaneous combustion" BS? First of all, it's AMPS that cause fires, not VOLTS. Second, if he was grounding out enough power to leave fire in his wake, he would have been barbequed long before he could take a second step.
-R
Sorry, but I'm relatively new to this site, and unfortunately, am unaware of the "inside joke" about obtaining news from Reuters.
Can someone please explain this one to me? I'd like to hop on the Reuters-bashing bandwagon, too, but I'm afraid that I'll look like a fool if I sit here and try to look cool by criticizing Reuters without a shred of evidence as to why. (I learned that lesson the hard way when I jumped on the NASA-bashing bandwagon.)
Seriously, this is not intended to be a troll, nor flamebait. I sincerely would like someone to explain this one to me.
I thank you, in advance,
Marc P. Driscoll
If you put it over a rubber suit, of course...
"Gimme the wallet!"
"Ok" *gets out metal coated wallet, holds it in his hand*
*Thief reaches for wallet*
*BRRRZZZZAP!*
*Thief twitches on floor*
"Too staticy for you, eh?"*
that's what he gets for wearing nylon after labor day...
Everyone's sciene "facts" are ruining my ambitions of becoming an electrical supervillain.
I figured I could rob banks and take day-care facilities hostage by threatening to put on my very hip weatherproof jacket.
Oh well... I'll just continue 'Plan Greenhouse' by dispersing all these Arid Extra Dry cans I have.
Why doesthe news article say Sydney when it happened in Warrnambool?
Jeremy
Melbourne, Australia
Jabber Australia
Hoax!!? No, it's not a hoax! He charged up his static field with dead cats.
...he wanted to show up at the office dressed to kill.
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
When we went to Paris, the French charged my girlfriend to a voltage of 300 kV relative to ground. She neither combusted nor started any fires around her!
If he touched any metal he would have lost most of the charge.
Also was he wearing bunny slippers and shuffling his feet?
If this is true, then I need to go back to college to re-learn physics!
Best Buy can have you arrested
Obviously, despite the fact that this is carried by Reuters, you should take some of the 'facts' presented here with some NaCl.
The fact that it is carried by Reuters means you'll be needing quite a bit of NaCl.
And they say the *American* education systems sucks! I'm guessing the Aussies won't be puting a man on the moon anytime soon then... :)
Think of the potential in that jacket (no pun intended). The answer to the energy crisis is windbreakers and woolens!
So THAT'S how lightning works!
If we can only stop those clouds from rubbing together (think:rubbing balloon on head) and stop that dang dry air from generating sparks!
Capacitance doesn't have anything to do with the maximum voltage that can be stored. In fact, a smaller capacitor can be more easily charged with a higher voltage because it requires less current.
The maximum voltage is related to the resistance of the medium separating the charged plates. The resistance where this starts to conduct (and usually in a destructive way) is called the breakdown resistance.
At the voltages they were talking about even insulators like plastic and carpet... even the air would start to conduct bits of the charge away. There's just no reasonable way to explain how that charge could have stayed in place while he was touching things.
And of course, as you mention, the really fatal flaw in the story is about the burn marks and melting. There's just not enough energy to do that kind of thing from the motion of him walking around. The low capacitance would mean that even at insanely high voltages there wouldn't be enough current to transfer the amount of energy needed.
Perhaps it was a small event related to spontainious combustion?
Before flaming me, please take some time to study that phenomenon. It is quite odd.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Static can be a source of ignition.
If I was attending a gas, liquid or powder based incident - say chemicals stored nearby or leaking or whatever - I'd want to know if any static charge existed in the area, if I was charged, or if I was building up or generating a potentially (no pun intended) dangerous charge whilst dealing with it.
I'd also imagine that a device to measure static charge would be rather different from your average voltmeter.
First, unless it's a suicide bomber with really lousy wiring skills, you can't maintain 40,000 V for more than a fraction of a second since it would immediately arc. Secondly, this is the latest in a long decline for Reuters.
Mainstream media has been more and more psychotic since 2000. There was a time you never thought you'd see Bill Tucker and Bill Hemmer get dumped from CNN.
I took an electronics course years ago. I was wearing a fleece sweater in a dry climate in winter. For some odd reason I could not get my circuit to work properly. That damn led would not stay on when it was supposed to. So I thought I would check out some of the other students circuits. Each time I walked up to one the guy would swear because his circuit suddenly would malfunction. It took me about five such instances to realize it was me! I radiated for about six feet around me and lost a few friends for that day... Mind you, I wasn't melting anything.
If it's magic, it must be all that Harry Potter's fault.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I learned in school the breakdown resistance of air was 30kV/cm, so a 40kV charge (not current...) would creat a whopping 1.33cm spark. I've done better under the sheets.
Someone managed to find two sober ABC employees on the same day!
Blank until
Yes, this is BS. Others have stated most of the reasons why it is BS but I will add my own. My own personal experience.
IIRC, air ionizes at around 40,000 volts per inch. I had to get new shoes a few years ago because I was walking around at work with my hair jumping up whenever I walked through the metal doorframe to my office, and had sparks around 2 inches long shooting out of my fingers when I reached for other ground points, such as the electronics I was working with at the time.
Based on that, I estimate that I was frequently walking around with around 80,000 volts of charge built up, and the only damage it ever caused was a few ruined CPUs. No burns, nothing melting, no SHC.
Distribution lines to multi-block neighborhoods are 14.4kv. Had one running down my street that occasionally incinerated hapless squirrels in a place I used to live. Then it gets stepped down by transformers to 220 for individual service.
Mythbusters!
They've already busted a myth regarding a "Static Cannon", which is described below at this page:
Although, the PVC pipe they tested, looked more like 8 feet, than 8 inch, it seems like no way you can build up a charge that might ignite your clothes like that, unless you've spilled flammable chemicals like acetone (nailpolish remover) or gasoline. A friend of me who attended a welding class, once told about a classmate who used oxygen to blow away some dust from his fleece jacket, and some time later ignited a smoke, which in order ignited his jacket which even many minutes later, contained high amounts of oxygen. It might be true, but I wouldn't believe it completely unless it was confirmed by Mythbusters, of course.
So unless there where flammable liquids spilled right besides where the static spark hit, I find it highly unlikely, that a static spark would ignite the carpet and those clothes. Think about it - how much larger is the possibility that someone sooner or later drops a burning cigarette on a similar carpet and/or clothes? We'd hear about it, if there were extremely flammable clothes or carpets like this, and those products/materials would very quickly be pulled off the market. It even counts against this story how elaborate it is. One spark and perhaps one little flame or a burn mark? Perhaps yes, but not a melting trail of plastic and/or fire on that carpet, and even in his car, without him detecting what was going on a little sooner!
Did those sparks btw jump all the way from his jacket, and into the floor, or via his pants (ouch), or what?
I say this myth is completely BUSTED!
This is a true story (even fair dinkum!). I'm a firefighter with the fire service involved, the Country Fire Authority (CFA). Two friends of mine are stationed at Warrnambool, and after chatting to both them and the Officer In Charge (Henry Barton), I can assure you that it's most definitely not a hoax. Perhaps the media has embellished or distorted the facts somewhat, but the basic story of a man walking into an office in Warrnambool leaving scorch marks on the carpet, and later having his jacket measured at 30K+ volts holds true. I've also spoken to our Public Affairs section, who were amazed when I told them of the interest (and scepticism) that is being generated in this incident, world-wide. CFA Public affairs have said that they will update the website http://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/ with information about the story asap. There's even some photos, showing the jacket involved, and the scorch marks on the carpet. Hope this helps.
Yes... and worse than gas is SHD...spontaneous human diarreha.. I get it too frequently, esp. after eating spicy curries...
This story created something of a media sensation for a few days, with various stories of varying scientific relevance.
I have to say that it "arcs me up" to see the media treat this kind of simple science story with disdain and hype, trying NOT to understand and then explain the simple science involved.
Looking at space, radio, science and computing from a 'down-under' amateur enthusiast perspective.
Ok, I tried it. Ooops. Good thing I took out that service plan.
I was so surprised to see that explanation, that I looked up how lightning works to reassure myself that that isn't the standard explanation.
It isn't, but the explanation I found still says " the method of cloud charging still remains elusive" (http://science.howstuffworks.com/lightning.htm), and goes on to talk about a charge between cloud and earth, and "break down" of the air. They don't mention rain and they seem less convinced of their explanation than I do about mine so here it is:
How I thought lightning works:
Falling water droplets tend to lose electrons (this is why waterfalls produce the same euphoric feeling that negative ion generators do, according to their manuals), leaving negatively charged air above the rain. The falling positively charged droplets can then provide a path for the negative charge, so that rather than making a huge jump through the air, the charge "leaders" make a large number of very short jumps.
I probably shouldn't base my scientific knowledge on negative ion generator manuals, but when other sources say "actually we don't really know...", I tend to trust my own ideas. I probably also shouldn't use slashdot to field those ideas...
As in these photo's of a man, high on PCP, touching a live 16,600 wire!!! http://www.tb3.com/tesla/sparky.htm