Recent content by Passiday

Particle accelerators come to my mind, and perhaps CRT monitors (but I'm not sure). Thanks, berkeman and bahamagreen for the clarification.

GFCIs are smart indeed. I don't know how they detect the imbalance tho (one sensor on the neutral socket and other on the hot socket? what if the device radiates electrons thus causing imbalance?). So, the well-conducting bath is to blame. Plastic baths with plastic plumbing should be safer...

Hello Ok, there's been another news in my area that a young woman was drying her hair, while she was in bath. Smart, huh. And the dryer fell out of her hands, and now she's dead. My kids hear those news and they're shocked and all, but I'd like to explain my kids what actually happened...

Guys, I am overwhelmed by your feedback. I asked what I thought a pretty basic question, but got a very elaborate explanations, with accompanying heated discussion. I bow in front of your commitment. I kind of dislike the oversimplification in science, you know, when talking about...

I think this is what I have problem with understanding. Since we don't take the presence of Earth into account, I imagine starting the thought experiment far away in space, where there's no any heavenly body to mess with the speeds and accelerations. Pretty much the environment with no matter...

Thanks for the explanations, however, I am talking about a point of confusion before we get to the Minkowski space. Ok, one guy takes a shortcut in spacetime, thus ages a bit slower. But my question is, what is he doing to use that shortcut? At this moment, educated layman would shout to me, you...

Hello, Still puzzled about the twin paradox (one guy stays on the ground, the other goes travelling). If we see the two twins as points in 3D space, the only thing that changes, is the distance between two. That is, the two guys are in totally symmetrical positions, and there should be no...

:) Well, I have a reason to be cuddly, anthropomorphizing the electrons. The material is for elementary school kids, with some cartoons, etc. Of course, the material has a disclaimer that electrons do not have mind of their own, but I think that explaining kids the electricity by using metaphor...

Thanks, this was valuable. This makes me wonder if there are some typical everyday situations where a static charge is accumulated and could be afterwards used as a form of alternative energy.

Oh, that's new for me that the insulator factor is not the decisive one. So, could we then establish a scale of materials, where the material to the left always will pass more electrons than receive from the material to the right (when put in contact, that is)? If such scale exists, there is...

Hello, I am preparing a material about static electricity, and it's basically finished. However, I have a question what puzzles me. I hope people in this forum can fill that in. So, the core process is that electrons hate to float in the insulators, so they hang on the surface of those...

Hello, I am far from nuclear plant engineering, so I might be asking irrelevant question... But I was wondering, why the Fukushima power plant reactor cooling system was designed to be dependent on external power? That sounds like planning for failure to me, especially in the environment...