Static electricity
18 12 2006(I thought about naming this post ‘Electricity in bed’)
I had a fever yesterday, and had an extra blanket on me when i slept to “help the fever” without draining my body of energy. Anyway, during the night, i was of course hot, I went up and had a glass of water. Then i decided that i did not need the extra blanket anymore, so i removed it.
When i removed the blanket there were sparks of static electricity and because it wast pitch black in the middle of the night they were really visible.
Big spots, from 5 to 10 cm^2, shone yellow on the surface of the felt blanket.
It made the same sound that you sometimes hear when you remove a woollen jumper.
Interesting! I’ve seen some tiny sparks a few times, but never anything like that. Don’t get that blanket near any RAM-modules! Maybe you could rub it up deliberately and take a photograph.
I found some appropriate illustrations:
http://www.resonanceresearch.com/bridge-fire-electrostatic-hands-on-display.htm
http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/exhibits/van-de-graaff/index1.html#6
I had an exciting experience with static electricity myself last summer. My cousins have got a really big trampoline(!) in their back yard in Jakobstad. I was watering their flowers while they went to France, and so Anna and I had an chance to play with the trampoline. (I wonder what the neighbours thought.. Two 20-something-year-old strangers jumping around on their neighbours yard and laughing hysterically.) But I had no idea it had such an impressing side effect of building up static electricity! It’s probably because there is a plastic sleeve surrounding the edges, which is constantly rubbing against the flexing mat while you jump. It’s all non-conducting materials. And that leaves you charged too. But the charge did obviously NOT distribute evenly among the jumpers. Sparks really flew when we touched!
(There was an attracting force.)
This is probably a “hot” topic, because i was asked to moderate this comment
The phenomena with the blanket was not “jumping sparks” but more like the surface was glowing. Perhaps the sparks just juped between the fur. But then the the glow was yellow, and in my experience static electricity is bluish.
Hmm. But… sparks in the air are blue, because tha atoms in the air are exited. perhats it was actually the fur atoms that started to glow. hence the yellowness. I have to take some photos. It was a syntetic furish feltlike blanket.
And the phenomena occourred when i removed the blanket from the bed. It was twirled and tumbeled, and when i removed it it got stretched out and during the stretching the glowing started.
Hällou!
Intressant fenomen du beskrev! Vardagen är fylld med
spänning, eller hur? Jag tänkte bara fråga om jag kan sätta dig på min blogg som en bloggare? Gud jul önskar jag dig!
Hej Eva. Välkommen. Visst får du länka hit.
om det är ok så sätter jag en länk till din blog härifrån också.
Åff kåårs.