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Power-dressing man leaves trail of destruction

krimson

krimson

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 29, 2003
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Democratic People's Republic of Kalifornia
I felt this needed to be posted in as many places as possible.



Power-dressing man leaves trail of destruction

SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian man built up a 40,000-volt charge of static electricity in his clothes as he walked, leaving a trail of scorched carpet and molten plastic and forcing firefighters to evacuate a building.

Frank Clewer, who was wearing a woolen shirt and a synthetic nylon jacket, was oblivious to the growing electrical current that was building up as his clothes rubbed together.

When he walked into a building in the country town of Warrnambool in the southern state of Victoria Thursday, the electrical charge ignited the carpet.

"It sounded almost like a firecracker," Clewer told Australian radio Friday.

"Within about five minutes, the carpet started to erupt."

Employees, unsure of the cause of the mysterious burning smell, telephoned firefighters who evacuated the building.

"There were several scorch marks in the carpet, and we could hear a cracking noise -- a bit like a whip -- both inside and outside the building," said fire official Henry Barton.

Firefighters cut electricity to the building thinking the burns might have been caused by a power surge.

Clewer, who after leaving the building discovered he had scorched a piece of plastic on the floor of his car, returned to seek help from the firefighters.

"We tested his clothes with a static electricity field meter and measured a current of 40,000 volts, which is one step shy of spontaneous combustion, where his clothes would have self-ignited," Barton said.

"I've been firefighting for over 35 years and I've never come across anything like this," he said.

Firefighters took possession of Clewer's jacket and stored it in the courtyard of the fire station, where it continued to give off a strong electrical current.

David Gosden, a senior lecturer in electrical engineering at Sydney University, told Reuters that for a static electricity charge to ignite a carpet, conditions had to be perfect.

"Static electricity is a similar mechanism to lightning, where you have clouds rubbing together and then a spark generated by very dry air above them," said Gosden.



© Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.

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Excellent! I'm now submitting a patent for "clothing based portable laptop and iPod charging". I expect to make millions! That, or spontaneously combust. ;)
 
Considering that the Van der Graaf generators used in high school physics labs all over the world generate 10s if not 100s kV, and you don't hear of too many schools burning down, I too am sceptical.
 
Hemingray said:
I'm very skeptical as well... sounds WAY too good to be true. Wonder if/when Snopes.com will address this one?
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I did a google search and it seems that a lot of news agencies are reporting on this. Not to say that the media always gets it right, but for this many groups to report it?????
 
This absolutely *has* to be fake. Either that, or Reuters and everyone else involved has absolutely no idea what the hell they are talking about.
Volts do not measure electric current. Amps measure current. Also, current does not "build up" in articles of clothing rubbing together. Charge builds up.
I can believe that the right collection of wool socks and nylon jackets and other static electricity prone items of clothing could build up 40,000 V of static electrical potential, if the weather was dry and everything, but there is no way that when this discharged that it would be able to supply a high enough current to light carpet on fire and melt plastic.
Otherwise Van de Graff generators would not be safe to play with in school science labs, because they can generate wayyyyyy more charge difference than rubbing a wool sock on a balloon or something like that.
Something isn't right here. Fire Official Henry Barton obviously does not know very much about electricity if he thinks that current is measured in volts. Clothing does not magically radiate electric current, like this article makes you believe.
 
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