JPHiP Forum
General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Tom Green on September 18, 2005, 06:32:45 AM
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Victorian authorities believe a man built up at least 30,000 volts of static electricity in his jacket simply by walking around the western Victorian city of Warrnambool yesterday. The man left a trail of scorch marks and molten plastic behind him. It was yesterday afternoon when Frank Clewer walked into a Warrnambool business and got his first shock."It sounded almost like a firecracker or something like that," he said. "It was at the reception area. Within say, around five minutes, the carpet started to erupt," he said. Burns the size of 10-cent pieces were left on the carpet where Mr Clewer had been standing. The Country Fire Authority evacuated the building and those around it, fearing the power could cause larger electrical problems. But Mr Clewer's worries continued when he got back in his car. "I actually scorched a piece of plastic I had on the floor of the car," he said. Scientist Karl Kruszelnicki says it is likely the electrical build-up was caused by a number of factors, such as the synthetic clothes the man was wearing.
"This poor guy has built up static electricity thanks to an unfortunate combination of insulating clothes that he's wearing, static, synthetic clothes, just walking along and he's just building up this static charge everywhere," Dr Kruszelnicki said.
"I've read of it but I've never heard of it here in Australia."
The CFA has Mr Clewer's jacket and says it is continuing to give off voltage.
:bounceblob:
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Awesome. Wait a minute, Australia? Victoria? That's where I live! :shock: I better watch out.
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Shit, I wanna know what he was wearing!
That sounds like something the X-Men would do!
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:shock: Wow
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Yeah, that's pretty shocking to say the least!
Boooooo urns.....
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Wow, that's so cool! But it's all fun and games until someone spontaneously combusts. Eh, still cool.
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where's the link to this article?
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It's Colonel Volgin! :w00t:
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I've got to say I'm really skeptical about this. Could a human being really survive with that much voltage running through his/her clothing? One would think that at some point prior to this that the electricity would do as it normally does and discharge itself, like a mini-lightning bolt. The article mentions that the guy said he left scorchmarks in his car. Cars are made of metal. Electricity goes through metal like people walk through the air. The charge this guy would have built up, according to the article, would have discharged into the metal body of the car, it's just the nature of electricity. He wouldn't have had to actually touch any metal part of his car, just come into close proximity to it, which, considering the fact that he was riding in it, is a given.
Sorry if I dashed anyone's hopes, but this just seemed unrealistic to me.