Fun with static electricity.

[Darell_n]

Teaching my kids what static is with our currently dry house and basement carpet. Pitch dark I can drag a blanket over them and it will almost light up the room. I can shuffle around in socks and they will start to glow after a few steps. Starting walking around holding a tape measure extended out 4 feet away from me, the end of the tape will light up and arc all the way down to my socks. Can also hear crackling from the tape measure starting 3 or 4 ft from my fireplace, very faint arc when I move. Any guesses what voltage I'm creating? Enough to warm a Tesla at -15C?

[ThePenIsMightier]

I think static discharges are tens of thousands of volts... But no powa.

Man, I was bad at that course about Gaussian surfaces and flux of electric fields, though...

[Darell_n]

My Google degree says roughly 75,000 volts per inch in standard conditions to start a spark. Much less, once the air is ionized.

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I use to do mechanical service work for Visa’s data Center downtown and they would absolutely loose their shit if the humidity dropped 1 point below the control setting.