From: MC elover (mcelover@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Feb 06 2003 - 13:25:20 PST
Message-ID: <20030206212520.65498.qmail@web40903.mail.yahoo.com> Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2003 13:25:20 -0800 (PST) From: MC elover <mcelover@yahoo.com> Subject: elestrostatics paradise!
stop the presses!
these last few days have been the best static
electricity demo days i've seen in a while. it's
super dry and cold out, and the sparks are jumping.
i'd suggest you all take a day off of whatever you are
doing and get the van de graaff generator and have a
day of fun. the plastic clipboard and pie plates were
making 1/2 inch long sparks today.
oh, i've been meaning to ask this for a while and now
it's totally appropriate: i'm curious about how safe
one of my van de graaff activities is. here's what i
do: i have the kids make a chain around the classroom
and hold hands. at the beginning of the chain i have
one student with his/her hand ON the van de graaff and
the other end of the chain has a student with his/her
hand grasping the sink. i turn the generator on with
the kids bracing for a shock. of course since the
charge can flow freely, there is no shock. then i
have the student at the end of the line let go off the
sink. still no shock. THEN i have the last student
grab the sink again ... WHAM!! the whole chain feels
a jolt! it's interesting to ask them what they
felt--most of them say they feel the shock in their
wrists. that leads me to believe that the juice is
running through the blood stream which is a super good
conductor. so basically what i have is a pretty good
jolt ruinning straight across the chest. seems like a
BAD idea when i think about it.
so what do ya'll think? is it dangerous?
in any case, it's a fun trick!
--eric
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.3 : Mon Aug 04 2003 - 16:18:12 PDT