'Electric Earth' Could Explain Planet's Rotation

sciencehabit writes "When it comes to Earth's rotation, you might think geophysicists have pretty much everything figured out. Not quite. In order to explain some variations in the way our planet spins, Earth's mantle — the layer of hot, softened rock that lies between the crust and core — must conduct electricity, an ability that the mantle as we know it shouldn't have. Now, a new study (academic paper) finds that iron monoxide, which makes up 9% of the mantle, actually does conduct electricity just like a metal, but only at temperatures and pressures found far beneath the surface."

Comments

And that's why

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why I bought a Saturn.

arXiv link

[fishicist]

Full text available on the arXiv, for those without a subscription to PRL: http://arxiv.org/abs/1112.5068

Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[atchijov]

Is there any electricity flowing and if there is, how can we harvest it?

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[Anonymous Coward]

It should be easy to harvest it; you just stop the planet's spin and then... Oh, you don't know how to do that? And your species is dependent on the planet's magnetic field because you can't stand up to much radiation? Well then you can't harvest that current... We Q could do it, but don't need any puny electricity.

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[NoobixCube]

Electricity is remarkably lazy, and doesn't do anything it isn't forced to do. It will always follow the path of least resistance, and will never flow from a point of lower voltage to higher (that would be like water flowing up hill). If there's electricity flowing, you have to ask what's causing it to flow. What's increasing the voltage between the two points? If you harvest the electricity without unerstanding why it's flowing in the first place, you won't know what the consequences may be.

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[Ethanol-fueled]

Tesla had that all figured out a little less than a century ago.

Of course, his work was buried so Edison could make a buck with inferior technology.

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, humanity... you have a gigantic fusion reactor floating right in front of your faces each and every single day... ...and yet you are constantly thinking about
- using energy that is required for a process that keeps you alive (like slowing down earth's rotation)
- finding the rarest resources on earth with useful energy in them and using them as your main fuel (uranium, fossil fuels, etc)
- being "green" by burning your own food, one of the most inefficient things to grow and process in the whole world.,

*warp 10 relativistic reverse double picard facepalm*
I don'. want to live on this planet anymore...

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[John Hasler]

Of course, his work was buried so Edison could make a buck with inferior technology.

There's a problem with your theory. His name was George Westinghouse.

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[AmberBlackCat]

Perhaps the original question could be rephrased to, what can we plug into the mantle that electricity will travel through easier than the mantle itself? But I'd have to wonder, if there is some way to harvest electricity from it, would that have a consequence similar to what harvesting water has done to the Colorado River.

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[Anonymous Coward]

and will never flow from a point of lower voltage to higher

Electrons have a negative charge. They move from negative to positive.

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[CSMoran]

and will never flow from a point of lower voltage to higher

Electrons have a negative charge. They move from negative to positive.

Ions, including those positive, can conduct electricity too.

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, it's all so simple! Obviously what we should be doing is burning the high energy output COMMON elements like silicon and oxygen! It all makes sense now!

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[cynyr]

So, care to work out how to power NYC with your "floating gigantic fusion reactor"? The best number I can find is 5GW (must be the "instantaneous" load of the city). How much land do you need to provide that sort of power with the sun? What will effect will reducing the amount of light that makes it there cause? How do you provide the required night time load?

This is not to say that not covering the roofs/side/etc of all building in NYC with solar panels is a bad idea, or worthless, just that it won't provide 100% of the power with the sort of availability that we are used to. We will should try to diversify our power generation methods.

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[NoobixCube]

Voltage isn't the same thing as charge, it's an expression of potential energy; that is to say, the difference in charge between two places. High voltage means electrons are colleted at one place and somehow absent from another. You're not going to take MORE electrons from the low point, obviously.

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[Anonymous Coward]

i kind of agree with you on the first 2 points but there must be some terrible typos or something in that 3rd point.

- being "green" by burning your own food, one of the most inefficient things to grow and process in the whole world

however, i can't imagine one that would still make this statement make sense...unless you are actually an alien.
as a human being, i don't care how inefficient growing food is...how else am i going to eat?

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[dak664]

Path of least resistance does not apply to electricity. It follows every field gradient and takes every path as fast as it can. The current through each path is limited by the reduction of the gradient caused by the charge already along the path, a.k.a. resistance.

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[WCguru42]

You can spin an engine with electricity. Propeller airplanes are powered by rotating engines. Therefore, you can make an airplane that can fly with electricity and not fuel.

It might not be a 747 but it'll still fly.

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with electricity for propellers or turbines is that if there's any sort of resistance to the propeller or turbine (say, goose in the prop or turbine intake), your electrically-powered prop has a pretty good chance of stopping altogether. Gas-powered props/turbines are more likely to continue to operate - you know, V = nRT/P.

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[EdIII]

If the fusion reactor floats... you are already flying. Just attach some small propellers, add a few seats and a dining car... and you have a luxury blimp.

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[Anonymous Coward]

Put the comic books down and join us in the human race.

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[jamesh]

Path of least resistance does not apply to electricity. It follows every field gradient and takes every path as fast as it can. The current through each path is limited by the reduction of the gradient caused by the charge already along the path, a.k.a. resistance.

The "path of least resistance" explanation always bugged me too when I heard it in high school... if it was true, all the electricity in your house (and by extrapolation, your street) would only flow through the appliance with the least resistance and would refuse to flow though all the other appliances, which is clearly not the case.

The internal resistance of the battery supplying the power might make it look like this is what's happening if you put a very low resistance device in parallel with a higher resistance device, but it's still wrong.

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[lightknight]

No. Don't even pursue this line of inquiry.

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[strangluv2]

All electric paths exist, there is no 'path of least resistance'
Currents flow everywhere, through your rubber gloves hanging on HT power lines, make them minimal or isolate the ladder. Your hair will stand up.

Its not a binary thing, a decision point.

We have populated the 'path of least resistance' theme over the years, to make you aware of the potential current that you might find yourself in a situation.

Put one hand in your pocket was the original recommendation for us as we work with high voltage, so as not to cross your chest.

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[mcgrew]

This may or may not be germane (I didn't RTFA but I guess I should), but my dad was an electrical lineman for a lot of companies and did quite a bit of construction on the grid, building towers and stringing high tension cables. A careless lineman building these is in danger of electrocution even before the power is switched on. He would weld his initials on the towers he built by wrapping a 12 gauge wire around the cable and shorting it to the tower.

He never could figure out what caused it, but when he told me this (I was a teenager at the time), it seemed obvious that the cables swinging in the breeze through the Earth's magnetic field generated the electricity.

But maybe there was more to it than just that.

As to the "subject line, there is one more item in the equation -- motion. The energy has to be there to begin with for it to be converted to electricity.

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[dkf]

The problem with electricity for propellers or turbines is that if there's any sort of resistance to the propeller or turbine (say, goose in the prop or turbine intake), your electrically-powered prop has a pretty good chance of stopping altogether. Gas-powered props/turbines are more likely to continue to operate - you know, V = nRT/P.

You seem to be confused. Electric motors tend to increase their torque at lower speeds due to reductions in inductive resistance. A bird-strike is more likely to damage the blades than to cause the motor itself to fail. (What's more, there have been a number of fully electric planes built already, and they have been around for years; the problem at the time was making them practical when carrying a large payload. Maybe with the better batteries and motors — areas where there have been significant advances in the past decade — it will be more practical to do this in the future?)

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[stevelinton]

There are at least two approaches:

1. Use solar power to make chemical fuel. For instance you could electrolyze water to make hydrogen, and either use the hydrogen directly, or react it with CO2 to make something like methanol.

2. Use satellite mounted lasers to heat a target mounted on the top of the 747, then use that heat to heat air in the engines (this only works for the cruise phase of the journey, you still need some other heat source for takeoff and landing.

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[stevelinton]

So you either move the power or move the demand. Moving the power might mean supertankers of liquid hydrogen, or long possibly superconducting cables. Moving the demand is basically a matter of pricing, so that it's more economic to spread energy-intensive activities out rather than concentrate them in cities.

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[DigiShaman]

The Earth's magnetic field rotates some however slow it might be. In theory, energy could be captured through induction. It would be a waste of time and money to do so, but I think it could be done just to prove a point.

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[Phoghat]

It should be easy to harvest it; you just stop the planet's spin and then... Oh, you don't know how to do that? And your species is dependent on the planet's magnetic field because you can't stand up to much radiation? Well then you can't harvest that current... We Q could do it, but don't need any puny electricity.

You are no longer a member of the Continuum. Your superiors have decided to punish you!

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[jbengt]

Paths of least resistance, then.

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think GP was talking about ethanol fueled vehicles, where we use the same resources to produce such fuel as could otherwise be used to produce food.

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[drinkypoo]

I may be about to commit a major nerd faux pas but I think it was Dyson who envisioned wrapping a planet in a coil of wire. You could draw energy from the coil and slow the planet down, or put energy into the coil and speed it up. Unfortunately there's a company called "Dyson Motors" so... sigh. But I thought it was called a "Dyson Motor". Can't find anything. Maybe someone else knows more, or can correct me.

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[mcgrew]

It's probably more like harvesting water from the Pacific Ocean. There is comparatively little water in the Mississippi, let alone the Colorado.

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[Anonymous Coward]

apparently, you do not know anything about the laws of diffusion.

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[tragedy]

Well, NYC covers about 790 square kilometers, so that's 790 million square meters. It gets a yearly average of 147.08 watts per square meter of sunlight (this includes nighttime). In January, NY's worst month for solar power, it gets 69.58 watts per square meter. So, that's an average of 116 GW for the average and about 55 GW for the worst month. So, to work on solar power, NYC needs to find a way to turn about 9% of that solar power hitting it to electricity for January numbers or 4.3% for the average. In an area as built up as NYC, that's very doable with conventional photovoltaics.

Clearly some form of power storage is needed for solar. Battery technology tends to be dirty, insufficient, and require too frequent replacement, even with stationary lead-acid batteries. There are other ways such as melting salt and harvesting the heat for power later, or pumping water uphill to reservoirs and then getting it back with hydrothermal. Another method is to synthesize fuels from the atmosphere and water. Methane is dead easy to make and has the bonus that it can be used in existing infrastructure such as natural gas lines. There are also more complex liquid fuels that can be made and have the bonus that they can be burned in existing gas or diesel engines. Such synthesized fuels are carbon-neutral since all of the CO2 released came from the atmosphere to start with.

Now, if you want to revise your definition of NYC to just the island of Manhattan, then we're only talking about 87.5 km squared. Take out 4 km squared for Central park and so forth. So 83.5 km squared. So only 12.28 GW average and 5.8 GW in the worst case. Of course, we don't know how your 5 GW figure applies, since you said it was for NYC and that almost always means the whole thing and not just Manhattan Island. There are about 1.65 million people living in Manhattan and average electric power use is about 300 Watts in the US, so that's 495 MW. We'll quadruple it to 2 GW because of other people working there and because of all the businesses there, etc. So, that's 16.28% of the average and 34.48% in the worst month. Even in that case, it's doable with good long term power storage.

Of course I only wrote this because I bothered thinking about the actual numbers. The first thing I started to write is that you were using a deliberately unreasonable example. NYC is a city. Not only a city, but the most densely populated major city in the US. So, your question is a ridiculous farce. You might as well demand that cities produce all of their own food within their borders. The answer to your question, if it hadn't turned out that NYC gets enough sunlight for its own electrical needs, is that you build solar powerplants somewhere sunny and sparsely populated, then you send the power by transmission line to NYC.

Now, that approach is may still be necessary for NYC if you need not just electric power, but _all_ power that people use. If you average out all of the power that people use in terms of electricity, transportation, heating, all the power used in manufacturing and transporting and providing the goods and services people buy, etc., as well as all the power used generating and transmitting electricity for end use and mining fossil fuels and all other resources, it actually works out to about 11 kW/person rather than 300 W/person (around 37 times more). Of course, the majority of that usually isn't actually _used_ local to the end user, but rather is used in factories, data centers, mines, refineries, bled out from transmission lines, etc. The point is that, even if you consider all of that power use per person, you can still get all of the power we use from solar. You just have to build huge solar power plants in Arizona and convert the power to the forms you need (such as into synthetic hydrocarbons) and then transmit it over lines and pipe it through pipelines and ship it in tankers, etc.

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[j-stroy]

It might have been the difference in potential between ground points.

My brother was doing some sort of Geo survey work where they ground a wire in a creek and then run it quite a distance to another location for sensing purposes. He told of big static discharges that could really set you down on your ass by contacting the wire once it was at the other location.

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[davewoods]

Put one hand in your pocket was the original recommendation for us as we work with high voltage, so as not to cross your chest.

??? Can you explain more on this please?

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[BranMan]

Simple - the idea being that if you use both your hands you may complete an electrical circuit *between* your two hands. Hands are attached to arms, arms to chest, and in between your two arms. in your chest, is your heart. Run a sizable (or even not very sizable) current through there and you may stop your heart. Just like a defibrillator does (TV notwithstanding). So using one hand only you will likely complete a circuit through one of your legs instead - and the current would pass by your heart and not through it.

Re:Magnetic field + conductor = Electricity?

[Anonymous Coward]

That sounds like the dumbest possible idea on Earth(literally) until you spend years and years modelling how drawing that up to the surface would affect the dynamics that keep the Earth spinning. Epicly dumb, as in God wouldn't just let it happen, he would intentionally turn off the safety that would have stopped it from happening anyway dumb.

this is all fine and dandy

[circletimessquare]

as long as this story doesn't bring out the electric universe trolls

Re:this is all fine and dandy

[Mitchell314]

What about us magnetic universe trolls?

Re:this is all fine and dandy

[circletimessquare]

stand in line behind the quantum gravity trolls

Re:this is all fine and dandy

[Anonymous Coward]

It's quantum *attraction* you insensitive clod. And it's an emerging science where we investigate how the principle of attraction influences the outcome of seemingly random quantum phenomena.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_%282006_film%29

Re:this is all fine and dandy

[circletimessquare]

LOL

Re:this is all fine and dandy

[Bigos]

Oh yes, we can't allow them to try to convince everybody that near vacuum of the universe can conduct electricity too.

Re:this is all fine and dandy

[Anonymous Coward]

The Tesla nuts showed up.

Nikola

[Anonymous Coward]

Tesla knew that already.

Re:Nikola

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but Tesla taught Chuck Norris the Roundhouse kick during a sparring match in Johannesburg. Chuck Norris instantly perfected it. And that's why Tesla is dead.

Not to be confused with....

[tverbeek]

Not to be confused with the Electric Universe Theory.

Re:Not to be confused with....

[cyberchondriac]

Being unfamiliar with this "theory", I followed the link. Holy hell, do they beat around the bush! I still don't have any idea what they're talking about (other than claiming modern science is deeply fragmented and flawed), but I read enough to decide I don't care.

Re:Not to be confused with....

[PopeRatzo]

Not to be confused with the Electric Universe Theory.

I'm a little bit familiar with the Electric Universe Theory and the way some comparative mythologists such as David Talbott and Troy McLachlan have incorporated the Electric Universe into their very interesting work. But I'm not clear on why this story is not connected with the EUT.

I'm not a physicist or an astronomer, so if you know a little bit about this can you try to clarify? My field was the analysis of texts, so I can deal with the comparative mythology piece, but I get lost pretty easily in the hard physics weeds.

By the way, the book by Troy McLachlan, Saturn Death Cult is one of my favorite books from 2011. Even if you believe EUT is crackpot stuff (and it well may be), it's a riveting read.

Re:Not to be confused with....

[sortius_nod]

I switched off when I saw the Lovecraft quote.

Re:Not to be confused with....

[ceoyoyo]

I'm not surprised. They don't know what they're talking about, so why would you be able to figure it out?

Time was when any astronomical or earth science story on /. would bring out legions of very sincere electric universe crazies.

Re:Not to be confused with....

[tverbeek]

It's not connected in the same way that the Jimi Hendrix album Electric Ladyland is not connected. By being about something completely different, but it just happens to start with the same word. :)

Re:Not to be confused with....

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure if what I heard once were central doctrines of the electric universe or personal variants, but it seemed an important part required finding large currents flowing through the universe. As part of this, large currents flowing through the Earth were connected to a bunch of geological phenomenon (for a loose definition of "connected," at least mentioned in the same sentences a lot). So it might not be surprising to seem electric universe people jumping all over a story like this that makes it easier to have currents go through the Earth, even if it is only the interior and what they needed was for a way for currents from space to flow through the Earth.

Re:Not to be confused with....

[PopeRatzo]

It's not connected in the same way that the Jimi Hendrix album Electric Ladyland is not connected.

You haven't listened to Electric Ladyland the way I've listened to Electric Ladyland.

It's connected to everything. Listen to side three after a couple of hits of the orange sunshine and tell me it's not.

I remember one time, I was out on the back porch of my friend's place up in Wisconsin, and I was staring up at the night sky just as I was peaking and and about halfway through side 3, when "1983... (A Merman I Should Turn to Be) " is really starting to take off and you could see the Milky Way and Hendrix is like "...giant pencil and lipstick-tube shaped things continue to rain and cause screaming pain and the arctic stains from silver-blue to bloody red as our feet find the sand..."

Man, everything is connected to everything.

Don't tell me about no "electric universe theory". Dude, I live there. :)

Re:Not to be confused with....

[EdIII]

I switched off when I saw the Lovecraft quote.

Of course it did. That is a defense mechanism because your mind is to puny to comprehend and/or confront the madness of the abyss......

Re:Not to be confused with....

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a little bit familiar with the Electric Universe Theory and the way some comparative mythologists such as David Talbott and Troy McLachlan have incorporated the Electric Universe into their very interesting work. But I'm not clear on why this story is not connected with the EUT.

I'm not a physicist or an astronomer, so if you know a little bit about this can you try to clarify? My field was the analysis of texts, so I can deal with the comparative mythology piece, but I get lost pretty easily in the hard physics weeds.

Velikovskians like Talbott are all about out-of-their-depth comparative mythologists imagining that common themes in diverse mythologies must mean that myths are actually accurate depictions of real events, and therefore, wherever myths conflict with history, physics, geology, or cosmology, it's time to toss the real science in the bin! You're missing an opportunity, you're totally qualified to join the field.

You can imagine me saying that dripping with sarcasm or in a perfectly serious tone. It works either way. Because really, that's what those guys do. They're not much better than, say, Erich Von Daniken. Actually I think Velikovskians might be nuttier than Von Daniken.

It's somewhat appropriate that Velikovskians picked up on EUT as a way to explain their myth-derived beliefs, because yes, EU theories are pure crackpottery.

What's that, you want an answer to your question? Well, the EUT cranks are really looking for electric currents flowing in space. Their ideas of how the universe works depend on staggeringly huge currents moving between stellar and solar system objects (which nobody has ever seen any evidence of, BTW). Electrical currents circulating in the Earth's core interest them only insofar as they can use them as talking points to say "See, electricity!!! Therefore, EU1!!!!!". Which they are wont to do whenever anything vaguely associated with electric currents and/or plasma is discussed.

Iron Monoxide?

[Doctor Morbius]

FeO is Ferrous Oxide not Iron Monoxide.

Re:Iron Monoxide?

[tqk]

FeO is Ferrous Oxide not Iron Monoxide.

The topic at the moment is geology, not chemistry. Try to keep up.

Bloody chemists. Grumble, mumble, ...

Re:Iron Monoxide?

[Sevalecan]

My CHM 111 professor would get a kick out of this. He's always giving biologists a hard time, but he makes fun of geologists as well.

Also, I prefer iron(II) oxide personally.

Re:Iron Monoxide?

[Anonymous Coward]

They are synonyms according to Chemical Book.

Re:Iron Monoxide?

[istartedi]

As long as it isn't dihydrogen monoxide. That stuff's dangerous!

Re:Iron Monoxide?

[ceoyoyo]

Iron monoxide would be the modern standardized name.

Re:Iron Monoxide?

[LtGordon]

FeO? That stuff is ugly.

Re:Iron Monoxide?

[Anonymous Coward]

+1 spanish joke

Re:Iron Monoxide?

[Anonymous Coward]

Muy chistoso, pero creo que la mayoria de personas Slashdot no van a entender.

(yes, obviously, not my first language, and barely my second)

Re:Iron Monoxide?

[Hognoxious]

The topic at the moment is geology, not chemistry.

You mean the history of chemistry. Suffixes like -ous and -ic and prefixes like per- and sesqui- were dropping out of use (i.e. the newer textbooks tended to use Roman numeral in brackets notation) when I last did chemistry twenty-some years ago.

GP probably still believes in Phlogiston.

Re:Iron Monoxide?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure that's iron(II) oxide. The naming scheme in "iron monoxide" is generally used for molecules, which have covalent bonds: carbon dioxide. Iron(II) oxide is an ionic compound, so it's named differently.

Re:Iron Monoxide?

[grcumb]

FeO is Ferrous Oxide not Iron Monoxide.

And FeB is Ferrous Bueller. What's your point?

Re:Iron Monoxide?

[Tacvek]

FeO has not been Ferrous Oxide in many years.

As of the IUPAC Redbook 2005, the preferred name would be "Iron(II) Oxide", however the name "Iron Monoxide" is a valid stoichiometric name for the substance.

The classic name "Ferrous Oxide" is no longer considered acceptable. I quote from Table III's second definition of the suffix "-ous":

Ending formerly added to stems of element names to indicate a lower oxidation state, e.g.
ferrous chloride, cuprous oxide, cerous hydroxide. Such names are no longer acceptable.

The "-ous" suffix is still permitted as part of acid names like "seleninous acid", or "arsorous acid".

Re:Iron Monoxide?

[Tacvek]

The preferred name would indeed be "iron(II) oxide". The name "iron monoxide" is however correct for a purely stoichiometric name. Such a name does not indicate the exact number of each element in a molecule, only the relative numbers. It also does not indicate the bonding in any way.

See the IUPAC Red Book 2005 for more details.

Re:Iron Monoxide?

[drainbramage]

Are you sure it isn't the second month of the year?

Re:Iron Monoxide?

[cranky_chemist]

According to the IUPAC nomenclature rules (http://www.iupac.org/publications/pac/28/1/0001/pdf/), it is iron(II) oxide.

Re:Iron Monoxide?

[yndrd1984]

GP probably still believes in Phlogiston

Phlogiston does exist, it's a nickname for highly entropic kinetic energy.

Re:Iron Monoxide?

[Whiteox]

Yep and the AEther in the heavens is dark /matter energy,

Re:Iron Monoxide?

[Anonymous Coward]

FeO is Ferrous Oxide not Iron Monoxide.

And FeB is Ferrous Bueller. What's your point?

You guys should have sex.

Re:Iron Monoxide?

[yndrd1984]

Yep and the AEther in the heavens is dark /matter energy,

Aether has referred to many different things over the millennia, things we now refer to as dark matter, dark energy, the magnetic permeability of free space, the space-time continuum, and quantum foam. Like phlogiston, the problem was never that these 'aethers' didn't exist, but that they had different properties than people first supposed.

Re:Iron Monoxide?

[Will.Woodhull]

"Iron monoxide" is a perfectly cromulent synonym for ferrous oxide.Like dihydrogen monoxide, and hydrogen hydroxide, it is sometimes the better choice for clear communications. Depending of course on exactly what you intend to communicate.

Re:Iron Monoxide?

[syousef]

FeO is Ferrous Oxide not Iron Monoxide.

More support for my push to rename Hydrogen to Stupidium or Ignoranium. It is the most abundant element after all.

Re:Iron Monoxide?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, they're wrong.

Moron(IC) oxide, more likely.

Re:Iron Monoxide?

[tqk]

"Iron monoxide" is a perfectly cromulent synonym for ferrous oxide.

"Rust"?!? Iron-able oxygen?!?

And in the spirit of your insightful riposte (seriously, honest!), I'd just like to say that was the Scotch talking, not me (and it may still be ...). I don't actually have any quarrels with chemists to speak of. In fact, having known a few, any of them over the age of 35 are damned near miraculous to me. All hail the inventor of the fume hood. And if you want to live to be 40, get out of chemistry. :-)

Coffee! ...

Re:Iron Monoxide?

[eriqk]

I wonder what the chemical notation for sarcas(MM) oxide is.

Re:Iron Monoxide?

[Will.Woodhull]

Perhaps it is just the Sunday morning sleepies, but this whole discussion about taking away the legitimacy of ferrous oxide strikes me as ironic.

Re:Iron Monoxide?

[tqk]

... this whole discussion about taking away the legitimacy of ferrous oxide strikes me as ironic.

Punny! Not much related to chemistry, but still enlightening.

Puns; gotta love 'em.

Re:Iron Monoxide?

[Ocker3]

I agree, it's been found at the site of every murder commited locally in the last five years, we must do something about this silent killer!

Has nothing to do with "electric earth"

[Anonymous Coward]

The article is genuine and interesting science, but "electric earth" is some kind of bullshit pseudoscience. Not sure why it got into the article headline, since it is completely unrelated. Slashdot embarasses itself in science again...

Re:Has nothing to do with "electric earth"

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you're thinking of "electric universe theory".

Was that headline intended to set off the kooks?

[John Hasler]

n/t

So the takeaway...

[Anonymous Coward]

is that, conductivity can be induced in compounds that are normally non-conductive, but only at geologic pressures and temperatures.

Is it safe to say, in general then, pressure and temperature play a role for conductivity in all non-conductive 'metal'-based compounds?

Physics Question.

[trout007]

Is there anyway to tell if the Earth is electrically neutral or has a net charge?

Re:Physics Question.

[Nidi62]

Find a really large sock and see if it stick to the Earth?

Re:Physics Question.

[UnknownSoldier]

Uhm, the Earth is effectively a bar magnet moving through space ==> when you move a magnet you create electricity.
Therefore there is untapped free electricity.
QED.

Re:Physics Question.

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is you need a circuit to tap that "free" electricty. And guess what? That circuit will be a conductor equally moving through space at the same time. Therefore, potential difference = 0. QED.

Why are there SO many scientifically illiterate people on Slashdot? Is it because programming is neither science nor engineering, but depends on both to exist?

Re:Physics Question.

[c 0xFF]

One thing we do know is the force from any net charge on the Earth is completely overwhelmed by gravity, the weakest of the fundamental forces. Remember, electromagnetism is about 10^36 times stronger than gravity. This would make detection very hard, indeed, but also suggests that any net charge is very small.

Now, I'm no cosmologist, but my understanding is that current theories require that the universe itself be electrically neutral (but I don't know why this has to be true, personally). So, for the Earth to have any net charge, you have to postulate some mechanism for the charges to get separated by cosmological distances.

Re:Physics Question.

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if there are surrounding electromagnetically active (ie conductive) materials.

Re:Physics Question.

[ceoyoyo]

If Earth had any significant net charge you'd stick to it. Really hard. Much harder than gravity pulls you.

Re:Physics Question.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are there SO many scientifically illiterate people on Slashdot?

Because there are so many scientifically illiterate people on Earth?

Re:Physics Question.

[colinrichardday]

Only if I had a significant charge.

Re:Physics Question.

[Hognoxious]

A brilliant answer. Pity it has nothing to do with the question.

Re:Physics Question.

[Hognoxious]

Doesn't that rest on the assumption that neither you, nor any of your ancestors, nor anything you or they ate, had made electrical contact with the Earth?

Re:Physics Question.

[Anonymous Coward]

The universe needs to have a net 0 charge, local spikes in either direction are perfectly acceptable, as long as they cancel one another out.

Re:Physics Question.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you can tell if the Earth has a net charge. You would quickly see a force on any other charged object, and it would be easy to vary the charge some objects, so you could separate strength of electric force from gravity. Also you can check if the Earth transfers any charge onto something like an electroscope.

Re:Physics Question.

[marcosdumay]

It does. And the smaler ones also do.

Does that mean the Earth is electric?

Re:Physics Question.

[ChrisMaple]

If Earth had any significant net charge you'd stick to it. Really hard. Much harder than gravity pulls you.

Actually, if the Earth had a significant net charge, everything in electrical contact with the Earth (like you and me) would have close to the same potential. The Earth would repel us, not attract us.

Re:Physics Question.

[cffrost]

Why are there SO many scientifically illiterate people on Slashdot?

Okay, we don't normally advertise this to just anybody, but if you really wanna come hang out with us real smart scientist-types, here's where it's at: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/index.html

Re:Physics Question.

[Anonymous Coward]

Comment below about the force being repulsive notwithstanding, you wouldn't necessarily need to have a significant net charge to experience a force (on your center of mass) because the earth would induce polarization in you...

Re:Physics Question.

[Anonymous Coward]

The individual water molecules may have a dipole, but the larger molecules don't have much of a dipole.

Re:Physics Question.

[ceoyoyo]

Good point.

Re:Physics Question.

[tragedy]

Good point, because, after all, magnetism can compress matter to such a degree that the cumulative magnetic field strength is so high that even gravity can't escape... Oh, wait, I have that backwards, it's the other way around.

Re:Physics Question.

[Anonymous Coward]

The net charge of Earth is probably *not* zero, but that doesn't matter. What matters is the *potential difference* between Earth and the surrounding space. Due to the solar wind this potential difference *has* to be zero. The solar wind, being a stream of charged particles emanating from the Sun, basically grounds the Earth to the Sun so that on average the Earth and Sun are at equal potentials. If Earth were at a higher potential, it would preferentially deflect protons and attract electrons to itself until its potential were the same as the solar wind, and vice versa if it is a lower potential. Whether, within some arbitrary boundary surrounding Earth, there are more positive charges or negative charges, is far less important than the potential difference, in terms of observed phenomena.

Re:Physics Question.

[Tim C]

Uh, no - expose a conductor to a changing magnetic field and you generate an electric current within the conductor (which will need to be part of a circuit for the current to flow, etc).

In other words, just waving a magnet around achieves nothing without a conductor there in which to generate the current.

Re:Velikovsky

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't tell if your being Ironic or not. If so then it fell a little short, for me at least. If not, what the hell does this have to do with Immanuel Velikovsky's crack pot ideas?

repetitive

[Anonymous Coward]

isn't it the same story, regurgitated?

http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/12/21/0432222/new-kind-of-metal-theorized-to-be-in-the-earths-lower-mantle

Diamond-Anvil Cell has issues

[DingerX]

My understanding is that the problem with measuring conductivity on materials heated in a diamond-anvil cell is that you have a central spot that is extremely hot, and then a steep temperature gradient to the rest of the material. Measuring conductivity on a diamond-anvil cell often results in simply measuring the circuit formed in these surrounding boundary areas. It's a pity people are still breaking diamonds with these things rather than thinking about the ramifications the test setup has for their measurements.

Bad Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there any electricity flowing and if there is, how can we harvest it?

Of course, if this same electricity is creating Earth's magnetic field then harvesting it would weaken the field that's protecting us from being constantly bombarded by charged particles and would probably wipe out most (if not all) life found on the surface.

Re:Bad Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I was going to post something like this. Taking energy from earth's magnetic field would be a bad idea.

Re:Bad Idea

[Saintwolf]

I can see the Illuminati calling dibs then :P

Communication medium?

[zackhugh]

Satellites are great, but because of the ionosphere, it would be better to send terrestrial messages through the mantle. Can signals be reliably transmitted and received?

Re:Communication medium?

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as I remember most conductors are electromagnetic insulators.
So probably no. You could try to use the earth as an antenna though.

Tesla

[Anonymous Coward]

In 1895 Tesla was harnessing the electrical conductivity of the earth. From Wikipedia:
A "world system" for "the transmission of electrical energy without wires" that depends upon the electrical conductivity of the earth was proposed, in which transmission in various natural media with current that passes between the two points are used to power devices. In a practical wireless energy transmission system using this principle, a high-power ultraviolet beam might be used to form a vertical ionized channel in the air directly above the transmitter-receiver stations. The same concept is used in virtual lightning rods and the electrolaser electroshock weapon,[63] and has been proposed for disabling vehicles.
Edison

Re:Tesla

[marcosdumay]

No. He was conducting electromagnetic waves through the athmosphere. Electric conductivity is a completely diffferent thing.

You can't even have the same material conducting both electromagnetic waves and electricity.

Could explain the _torque_

[mbone]

The issue is not really the source of the long-period "decade" fluctuations in the length of the day (LOD). It has been known for decades that these have to be caused by "weather" (fluid magnetohydrodynamics) in the liquid outer core. Has to be, as there is no other suitable source of angular momentum. The atmosphere and oceans up here on the surface simply fall short, by as much as an order of magnitude, and nothing else (ice, groundwater, tectonics, etc.) can even match them. The "weather" in the core is dynamically rather different than the weather up here - the heat source is radioactivity and precipitation of solid iron, while the core is quite conductive, and so the dynamics are MHD, not just HD. We don't know much about fluid motions in the core, but we do know that they have to exist, to drive the observed LOD variations (and also drive the observed changes in the geomagnetic field).

What the real question is is the nature of the torque between the mantle and the core. The two leading contenders are pressure torques (differences in pressure across whatever inverse mountains there are at the core mantle boundary) and electromagnetic torques. The E&M torques would be enhanced if the mantle is conducting.

So, this is a plus for the E&M torque theorists, but I wouldn't expect this issue to be really resolved for some centuries, if not longer. The core is not that far away, but it's hard to see through thousands of kilometers of rock...

Re:Could explain the _torque_

[Hognoxious]

inverse mountains

Downtains?

Re:Could explain the _torque_

[superdana]

Downtain Abbeys?

Re:Could explain the _torque_

[Hognoxious]

I don't think Nietzsche[1] was a Russian, but when you gaze into Abbeys the Abbeys gaze into YOU!!!

[1] Maybe I'm thinking of Poincaré. I always get them confused because one of them is next to each other in the dictionary.

Re:Could explain the _torque_

[RockDoctor]

I don't think Nietzsche[1] was a Russian

Nyet, she's Deutsch.

but when you gaze into Abbeys the Abbeys gaze into YOU!!!

I read that as "the Abbess gauzes into you", and shuddered. Not, it should be said, in anticipation. Or hope.

[1] Maybe I'm thinking of Poincaré. I always get them confused because one of them is next to each other in the dictionary.

Huh? Oh, I see. "confused" and "conjecture".

Time to go and swat a church.

Re:Velikovsky

[binarylarry]

they're they're know

what a mover!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like spin to me...

Re:Was that headline intended to set off the kooks

[Suddenly_Dead]

I hope so. I haven't seen that Electric Universe guy post in forever. Where's he gone to?

Re:Was that headline intended to set off the kooks

[lister king of smeg]

The scientology troll ate him

Where did you think the electricity went?

[mbstone]

One side of every electrical circuit is connected to a cold water pipe. And all the cold water pipes are connected to the earth's mantle. This is why there is electricity in the earth's mantle. The solution? Just connect your circuits to an antenna instead of grounding them. This way all the electrons will be radiated into the ionosphere, and you'll once again be able to touch the earth's mantle without getting a nasty shock.

Hot molten metal can be a battery

[fluffy99]

It's already been shown that molten metals and rocks in layers can be charged like batteries. Is it no surprise that they conduct? http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-04/molten-metal-batteries-could-store-extra-juice-power-grid

If only there was something condutive that covered

[Anonymous Coward]

most of the earth... a fluid that could conduct electricity.... sort of like salt water.

Re:If only there was something condutive that cove

[Anonymous Coward]

please get off the site

Mars?

[WindBourne]

I wonder if there is some interesting repercussions on this as a way to restart their magnetic sphere. Perhaps it would be possible to pass electricity through its core and get a field.

But Earth doesn't rotate!

[mypalmike]

I learned it on youtube.

Re:But Earth doesn't rotate!

[dargaud]

Whoah. Just as bad as flat earthers, but not even as good a troll.

Re:But Earth doesn't rotate!

[Anonymous Coward]

My god. The idiocy in this video... the ignorance... I think my brain had a heart attack.
I'm all for free speech, but damn, some people need to have their ability to communicate be removed.

Still, this isn't anywhere near as bad as those legit Flat Earthers...

Re:But Earth doesn't rotate!

[binary paladin]

Holy shit.

I had to watch some of this. I don't know why, but I couldn't stop. I am in disbelief at just how retarded this is.

Re:Velikovsky

[Phoghat]

So does this mean people will start taking Immanuel Velikovsky seriously? I mean people aside from James Hogan?

Naa...

Despite this popularity, overwhelming rejection of its thesis by the scientific community forced Macmillan to stop publishing it and to transfer the book to Doubleday within two months, and that pretty much puts "Paid" to that

Path of least resistance

[Another, completely]

V = IR

For constant voltage, a high resistance will have a low current, and a low resistance will get a high current. If you connect two loads to one constant voltage source (in parallel), the lower resistance (the path of least resistance in this discussion) will get more current. The other gets current also; just less of it.

That's assuming your source can produce enough current. Using a good thick copper wire to ground an average battery will probably result in a reduced voltage for all loads. And a hot battery.

Carbon Footprint

[Webmoth]

But what is the carbon footprint of all this electricity that Earth is using? Surely that can't be good. We need a treaty with the other planets that curtails Earth's inordinate use of the universe's electricity! Why, it just might throw the interstellar ecosystem out of balance unless we get it under control!

the earth is an elecron

[peawormsworth]

This matches my theory where the solar system is a sort of Element of the universe at a larger scale of much higher order beyond what we can see and at much larger time scales (slower).

That's where my socks have been going...

[Dareth]

That's where my socks have been going! They are being sucked right out of my dryer into the Earth's mantle!