Sunday, September 18, 2005
Ouch!
Fire officials in southern Victoria state said the man, Frank Clewer, had built up at least 30,000 volts of static electricity in his jacket simply by walking around the western city of Warrnambool, according to a report by the Australian Broadcasting Corp.I'd love to know the details here -- precisely what materials were involved. There could be some really fun materials science in this. Static electrricity raised to the level of genuine hazard. Start engineering plastics with impurities specifically to create discharge at certain voltage levels. The jacket as capacitor. A substitute for this thing?
He received his first shock when he walked into a local business Thursday afternoon. "It sounded almost like a firecracker or something like that," Clewer told the ABC. "Within say around five minutes the carpet started to erupt."
Okay, slow down John -- you're starting to go totally geek on them. Don't mention x-ray diffraction or gel permeation chromotography. Don't do it, you'll lose them completely. Take a deep breath and move on.
I'm sorry - cool story, huh?
