Nice! I couldn’t remember the details, but I was thinking of this too as the “maybe.”
I’m very skeptical of that story though. You’d think the strength of the electric field would have to be gigavolts/meter.
I just said gigavolts because of Doc Brown :p
I just know it would be more than a van degraff generator or a tesla coil. Lightning is in the 10k’s V/m.
I’m an electrical engineer (ok, ok, 3.5/4 of one. I had already graduated in CS, and quit early for a job).
I can’t imagine a static electric field with these properties.
The dielectric breakdown voltage of pretty much everything, especially air, would be relatively very small compared to that field, to generate a physical force at that distance.
Neodymium magnets can do that at millimeters apart, nothing really does at a few meters.
And why weren’t opposite or neutrally charged things sucked into it?
Sounds like a really sciency-sounding legend. Maybe there was a small effect and a story grew.
—
I just realized that the HN link is like 10 hours of everything I just said in the comments (but higher effort, I guess they went all 4-7 years, lol).
Haha, anyway. Add me to the skeptics. Life is usually boring :/
I’m very skeptical of that story though. You’d think the strength of the electric field would have to be gigavolts/meter.
I just said gigavolts because of Doc Brown :p
I just know it would be more than a van degraff generator or a tesla coil. Lightning is in the 10k’s V/m.
I’m an electrical engineer (ok, ok, 3.5/4 of one. I had already graduated in CS, and quit early for a job).
I can’t imagine a static electric field with these properties.
The dielectric breakdown voltage of pretty much everything, especially air, would be relatively very small compared to that field, to generate a physical force at that distance.
Neodymium magnets can do that at millimeters apart, nothing really does at a few meters.
And why weren’t opposite or neutrally charged things sucked into it?
Sounds like a really sciency-sounding legend. Maybe there was a small effect and a story grew.
—
I just realized that the HN link is like 10 hours of everything I just said in the comments (but higher effort, I guess they went all 4-7 years, lol).
Haha, anyway. Add me to the skeptics. Life is usually boring :/