Floating Water Bridge and Dielectric Strength per Volume

[HelloCthulhu]

I recently watched a great video demonstrating the floating water bridge experiment:



At around 34 sec, you can see an electrostatic discharge before the water bridge forms. I've read that this is due to the electrostatic breakdown of air between the two beakers.This made me curious about the electrostatic breakdown of water, which is listed on wiki as 65-70MV per meter. My question is, at what volume would this be true? If electrostatic breakdown is measured in volts/meter, would the volume be measured in cubic meters? Any help understanding this concept would be greatly appreciated!

 

[TeethWhitener]

V/m is a measure of electric field: no volume required. So if you have two electrodes in water that are one meter apart, you need to apply 65 MV to get dielectric breakdown of the water.

 

[HelloCthulhu]

Thank you so much for responding. Just to make sure I understand this correctly, I'll purpose this scenario. Let's say I fill a 1 cubic centimeter container with water and place electrodes on either side. With roughly a distance of 1 centimeter (0.01m) between the electrodes, would the dielectric breakdown of the water equal 600kV?

 

[Borek]

More like 650 kV, but yes, that's how it scales.