Recent content by zmorris

I did a bit more research and found that even though space is cold, its pressure and density are so low that it's filled with a high temperature plasma, which means that mostly the hydrogen protons are separated from their electrons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_wind#History...

Hi this may sound like a simple question but I'm trying to find out the relative abundance of hydrogen in its various forms in space: H, H+, H-, H2, H2+, H2- I'd like to know these for our stellar neighborhood involving the solar wind and also for interstellar space outside the heliopause...

Ya I think you are right that the plate material is not much of a factor compared to the dielectric strength. I originally thought that vacuum was the best you could do, because there is nothing present to conduct electricity, but benzene and teflon are perhaps 4 times better. So you really...

Hi I was about to fall asleep last night and was thinking about breakdown voltage, when electrons are pulled from the surface of a conducting plate and form a channel that discharges a capacitor. This is called a vacuum arc, some other keywords are thermionic emission and work function...

After mulling over this problem for another couple of days and not getting anywhere, I decided to go back to basics and look at the magnetic force between moving charges: http://teacher.nsrl.rochester.edu/phy122/Lecture_Notes/Chapter30/chapter30.html \bar{F} _{mag} = \frac{\mu_0}{4\pi}...

Hey thank you again Philip, thinking about the force that way is insightful. I wanted to let everyone know that I added your integral from #11 to the javascript calculator: http://jsbin.com/itanag/5/edit You can test it by clicking the "these values" link. It appears to be very numerically...

Just to be clear, my goals are: 1. Find the total outward force on a ring of current. 2. Relate this to the centripetal force of the electrons in the ring. 3. Relate this to the electromagnetic force on the electrons. 4.* A full formula involving the radius or cross sectional area of the...

Hey thanks Philip, solving for inductance instead was a brilliant insight. Here is a similar formula in "On the Self-Induction of Electric Currents in a Thin Anchor-Ring" by Rayleigh 1912 I found after you mentioned it...

Ya I came to the same conclusion, that the field depends on the thickness of the wire, because the strength inside is proportional to radial distance from the center over radius of the wire squared: http://webphysics.davidson.edu/physlet_resources/bu_semester2/c15_inside.html Again...

Hi sorry for my late reply. I bit the bullet and wrote a script to calculate a numerical estimate of the B field at any x,y,z coordinate near a ring of current. It also displays the ideal fields at the center and along the z axis for reference: http://jsbin.com/itanag/1/edit My best...

That's a good approach and has me thinking in some new directions. Unfortunately I don't know how to calculate the B field strength at the opposite side, because I only have the formula for a straight wire. So I don't have anything to plug into IBdL. Another way to think of this is, imagine...

Hi, I'm trying to calculate the outward force on a loop of wire carrying a current, radially from the center to the perimeter. I found the formula for the force between two parallel wires: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/magnetic/wirfor.html F/L = u0*I1*I2/(2*pi*r) And the...

Hi All, I've googled everywhere trying to find out if the combustion/flammability of hydrogen is reduced at all for low pressure at high altitudes. There is data for hydrogen at high pressures, but I've been unable to find any data for low pressures. For example, if a hydrogen balloon stays...