Cool Science Stuff!

[Boba Rhett]

My particular forte is electricity so the first batch will be about, you guessed it, electricity!

 

 

Static electricity shocks can be well over 10,000 volts.

 

Jump distance information: (through your average air sample)

 

mm gap - volts required

.5______________2850

1_______________4350

2_______________7350

3______________10350

4______________13350

5______________16350

 

 

 

 

Want a stun gun in under five minutes?

 

Step 0: Yes, step zero. For the love of God, discharge the flash on your camera.

 

Step 1: Crack open a disposable camera, see the big black cylinder in there that looks like the one in this picture? It's a capacitor. Jumper two insulated wires (works best if you solder them but wrapping will work), one from each of its legs, and run them outside of the case. Then reassemble the body of the camera. Do NOT let the ends of the wires touch.

 

Step 2: Press and hold the flash button until the flash is fully charged.

 

Step 3: RELEASE THE FLASH CHARGE BUTTON.

 

Step 4: Find something (non living) to shock the hell out of.

 

NOTES:

 

Despite my seemingly wanton disregard for human life in telling you to do this, I will tell you this - it is not a toy. It's strong enough to blow craters in quarters - it's strong enough to mess you up.

 

The discharge will be along the line of 340 volts.

 

If the flash button is not released the battery of the camera will immediately drain during your first tazering.

 

The camera should be good for about 300 tazer discharges.

 

While this won't be killing anyone or knocking them to the ground anytime soon, this can hurt VERY BADLY. NEVER use this on living things. Even if you're in a violent, mouth-frothing, fit of rage. *points at RedHawke*

 

 

 

 

The subsequent hole I blew in my thumb from forgetting to discharge the flash on the first incarnation of the aforementioned stun gun hurt very badly. So, how much power did it take for me to loose feeling in my thumb for three days? Lets find out!

 

My capacitor was charging to 343 volts. measuring the resistance across the distance it had to move across my skin gives us the figure of about 730,000 Ohms which then gives us a current of about 470uA. Voltage * Current gives us ~.161 Watts. BONUS: That's .000216 Horsepower!

 

 

 

 

If you maintain an electric field through water somewhere on the order of 1 million volts per cubic meter, the water will freeze at room temperature.

 

 

 

 

The average sized Tesla Coil, Click Me, produces 2.5 million volts at 20,000 Amps. A bolt of lightning can reach 300,000,000 volts at 30,000 Amps, Click Me.

 

 

 

 

How fast is "electricity"? The speed of light, 186,000 miles per second you say? The shockwave" moves at that speed but the actual electron flow could easily be outpaced by a man in a walker going uphill.

 

 

 

Electricity flows from positive to negative, right? Nope! Negative to positive. Electrons are negatively charged, which causes them to moves from negative to positive. The flow looks like it's going from positive to negative because of the "holes" left by the electrons as they move. (You're seeing the holes and it looks like they're moving positive to negative)

 

 

 

 

What's one of the best electrical insulators? Pure water. Very very pure. The impurities in normal water are what causes it to be such a fantastically lethal conductor. (The electricity is given a path through the impurities)

 

 

And that's all I can remember for now. Feel free to post comments, questions, to supply additional stuff, or just to call me a lying bastard or some other generic form of bastard.

[Ray Jones]

(Whhooooooo. Boba gave us opportunity to double post!! I'm in.)

 

Hey, you've missed out to actually explain why things are like that. For instance, why is pure water one of the best insulators? Why is the direction of electric current flow from negative to positive?

[Boba Rhett]

Dammit, Ray.

[Ray Jones]

What?

 

Electrons have negative charge. To make them "flow" you need a difference of charge between the electrodes (potential difference). This potential (to produce electric current) is measured in Volt. Now, the cathode (-) has more electrons than the anode (+), and basically the electrons just want to go where it's less crowded than where the currently are, so they take a nice walk to a new land. This is then called current and measured in Ampere, the more electrons are walking at the same time the higher is the current. This theoretically happens until all electrons are equally "distributed" (Or in Rhett's example until his thumb turned into coal, next time the ear, eh). This can be compared to the water flowing out of a glass which is knocked over. BTW, it's not the voltage which is dangerous, but the current which flows. One can easily get killed with a voltage of 10V if there's enough current flow.

[RedHawke]

Even if you're in a violent, mouth-frothing, fit of rage. *points at RedHawke*

Huh? Who me?

 

I vent all my agression on collections of pixels... far safer that way.

[HerbieZ]

If i am ever caught in a Jack Bauer-ish situation, i want you with me Rhett. In theory, this is rigging a camera with a booby trap that can stun the user for several seconds. Somehow, a plan is forming in my head

[Jae Onasi]

MacGyver ftw!!

 

I'll look up some cool human body/eyeball stuff.

 

If anyone has some human body questions, feel free to ask, and note that this is not a sex-ed class, sorry.

[Ray Jones]

I want to know why I hear voices?

[milo]

{snip big-ass text}

My friend made something like that, except he used an old lighter, which was more like a static shock than a tazer. We shocked the hell out of a bunch of praying mantis's. It was neat-o.

 

I'm gonna have to try this camera thing though.

[Darth InSidious]

@Ray: It's the blue pills. They're out to get you. I suggestchucking them out the window right away. Then forget about them.

 

@BR: You forgot to mention that the best electrical conductor is silver (IIRC, any way...)

 

@Topic: Interesting trick with a plasma ball and a energy-saving lightbulb.

 

Get yourself a plasma ball, and a Low-energy lightbulb. Do NOT, I repeat, do NOT hold the lightbulb by the metal end - ideally, only touch the plastic bit.

 

Switch the plasma ball on, and hold the low-energy lightbulb near it.

 

Why what happens happens?

 

Because low energy lightbulbs work unusually, and because plasma-ball thingies give off a small electrical field (hence you can manipulate the 'tendrils' with your hand...)

[Jae Onasi]

I want to know why I hear voices?

 

Because you

a. forgot to turn off the radio

b. are eavesdropping on the neighbors

c. are hallucinating (in which case go see your doctor).

d. other

 

I don't think we know exactly why people hallucinate, though we know there's an imbalance of chemicals that transmit signals between brain cells. Some medications make people hallucinate temporarily, too.

[HerbieZ]

My friend made something like that, except he used an old lighter, which was more like a static shock than a tazer. We shocked the hell out of a bunch of praying mantis's. It was neat-o.

 

Were they still praying by the end?

 

@topic. Is it possible to make a makeshift neuraliser by removing the flash from a camera and attaching it to a battery?

[Samuel Dravis]

Only if you put a capacitor on it too.

[Boba Rhett]

Only one way of finding out, Herb!

 

Plasma balls are miniature Tesla Coils. I believe these operate by means of electrical conduction. An AC current is injected into the ground through a grounding terminal, this takes advantage of the earths charge - making it oscillate and enabling an electrical flow to propagate thousands of miles with little interference. (Think about it, relative to it's size the earth isn't exactly thin anywhere so it's not going to choke the flow) This propagation is the reason the flow from the Tesla coils can be completed from the coil through the earth to you and back to the coil. The tentacles reaching to your hands and the small shock you feel are the surface waves. This is the current jumping through the air to complete the huge flow that's been set up.

[tk102]

Ever play with Leyden jars Boba?

[Ray Jones]

d. other

Exactly, I hear them because they talk to me. XD

[SilentScope001]

Because you

a. forgot to turn off the radio

b. are eavesdropping on the neighbors

c. are hallucinating (in which case go see your doctor).

d. other

 

I don't think we know exactly why people hallucinate, though we know there's an imbalance of chemicals that transmit signals between brain cells. Some medications make people hallucinate temporarily, too.

 

E. You are in a crowded room, with lots of noise and sound. Your brain may mistakeingly intrept all that sound and noise and sensory input to create some sort of word that you can understand quite clearly.

 

At least, that is what my doctor said. It's not hallacutions, it just a natural part of how the ear deals with tons of sensory inputs.

[Boba Rhett]

I've never played with official ones, tk, but they were the first incarnations of the capacitor. Back then they were called condensers. With a few parts you can make one at home and have some fun.

 

Wanna Build One?

 

Detail Info on Operation and another (nicer) build.

 

Or just shove sheets of tinfoil between book pages and introduced some static, that'll act as a small capacitor too.

[Rogue15]

i swear i posted here.....

 

i've shocked myself numerous times while working at the photo lab, it's like a mini-taser. i threw one of them at my dept manager once, that was funny.

 

edit: damn you people and your double posting of same threads in separate forums!!!!

[Hallucination]

If anyone has some human body questions, feel free to ask, and note that this is not a sex-ed class, sorry.

Where do babies come from?

 

Looks pretty interesting, I'll have to make one of those thing-dealies sometime.

[Ray Jones]

damn you people and your double posting of same threads in separate forums!!!!

Yeah. Let's mock Rhett and unleash a ban on him - an ordinary-user-ban. So he has to be an admin, for-e-v-e-r!!

 

Mwaha! Buahahahaha. Harrrr. ABC! FTW!!! LEET! EGYPT!!!!

[Jae Onasi]

Where do babies come from?

Depending on your part of the world, either the stork brings the baby or it magically appears one day in a cabbage patch. The other standard answer is: "A mommy and a daddy love each other _very_ much...."

 

You should have seen Jimbo and me a few weeks back. Apparently they were studying the 10 Commandments at Sunday School, and my son asked at dinner that night, "Mama, what's adultery?" We had to do some very creative dancing around that topic.