Let's say we have a 120 Volt AC source

mquirce

People. be patient uith a ignorant lay man.
I have a question about static electrisity and Plank quanta "h'
Let supose we have two electric unity charges far from each other 3.48181805*10^7 cm in static standing. The potential enrgy of these two charges will be E = h/1 erg.
Now let supose that distance is plus 10 cm longer. I am confused about dilema:
will be energy E< h/1 or will be 0 ?
Please somebody help!

Evil Bunny

You bring up a good point Studiot. Why is it that neither of the poles in our 120 Volt generator have any desire to interact with the earth whatsoever, yet the electrons in that cloud are so excited to get to earth that they ionize the air and we see a bolt of lightning come down and touch the ground?

Is it a matter of voltage? Let's take our suspended generator and crank it up to a million volts instead of just a wimpy 120 volts. Would that arc jump from one pole of the generator to the earth or would it jump from one pole of that generator to the other? I've got my money on the one-pole-to-the-other option. What about you?

Excellent, excellent point! Something I know nothing about but am very interested in... Thank you.

Naty1

Extremely high voltages have their own "set of rules"...try reading about lightning for example. I was recently told by a power company linesman they can use fiberglas poles up to something like 7,500 volts....don't quote me on that figure.....so current might flow through their bodies otherwise...."What about 25,000 volts and even 250,000 volts...I asked" "how do you work on that"...answer...." You have to shut the power off....

Naty1

Take a dry cell battery as an example....1.5volts or maybe a 9 volt....touch one terminal the earth...even a car battery....12 volts....what happens??

nothing.

Now take wires stuck into the earth...say wet earth and not too far apart....and touch them to the battery terminals....sparks almost certainly.....current FLOWS....

Naty1

Try reading here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_de_Graaff_generator

Note that a sphere holds electric hcarge quite well...one reason lightning arrestors...designed to AVOID charge build yup are typically pointed or wire brush like...to dissipate leader charges as quickly as possible.

Naty1

Bunny:
not likely....more experienced, perhaps....

Never think some else is smarter just because they understand something they have thought about and studied and you are just learning....

JaredJames

You need to post this in a new thread, not hijack someone elses.

Studiot

I thought my poetic cloud example would make it clear that both would likely occur.

Sorry if this was not clear.

Evil Bunny

That's ok. No problem. Can you explain? I think if we slowly increase the voltage until it reaches a point to where an arc would form, this arc would travel from one pole to the other.

Are you saying that when this arc occurred, it would jump from one pole to the other and the ground simultaneously?

I would tend to disagree with that hypothesis, but I bet we could test this one out easy enough.

JaredJames

I don't believe he said that.

The arc would go either from pole A to pole B or from pole A to the ground (assuming pole A is the one the charge built on).

Naty1

In general, it will arc along the shortest air path...The voltage in a spark plug, for example, can arc the 1/16" or so of separation between the electrodes.....won't go six feet, for example....

When the air ionizes, electrical current beginns to flow.....you'll possibley smell ozone, a product of the ionization....I think it's pretty much the same as cornoa breakdown:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electri...rona_breakdown

The boldface is mine and supports my prior post....

Studiot

I think Brer Rabbit is trying to play the same game here he plays with Brer Fox and Brer Bear,

Trying to convince them black is white.

Evil Bunny

He's not saying much of anything. Which is why I'm trying to get an explanation. I posed a question. Would the arc jump from pole to pole or pole to ground? He said both. I'm trying to guess what he means because he hasn't told us. He was very quick to bring lightning into the conversation as proof of... something? I'm just trying to get to the bottom of why the arc from pole A (for example) would only want to jump to pole B and not to the ground like lightning does. I honestly don't know the answer. Maybe this explanation will help clear things up for me.

I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. I am only trying to get a better understanding of how electricity (whatever that means) works...

JaredJames

Where did anyone say it would jump to both simultaneously?

The arc will jump through the path of least resistance - this will either be to the other pole or to the ground. There's no more to it than that.

Evil Bunny

Let's put them the exact same distance apart. Pole B and the earth are now the exact same distance from Pole A. We start increasing the voltage until an arc occurs. The arc originates from Pole A... where does it go?

I say it goes to Pole B even if it was farther away than earth. The "desire" to go to the earth is not there. Correct?

Lightning... on the other hand...

JaredJames

No. There is absolutely no desire.

As per my previous post, it follows the path of least resistance. (This of course, assumes the ground and pole b are equal in charge.)

Evil Bunny

Post #25 except for the "simultaneously" part. Would one happen first? Again... little explanation. Hard to tell.

But there is. Didn't we say that there wasn't even a voltage present between the ground and the pole? Why would it ever want to go to the ground in the first place?