A chap in Australia was wearing a particular combination of man-made fibres and managed to generate 30,000 volts of static electricity, causing serious problems for the place where it discharged itself:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/09/16/static_jacket/
I don’t know about you, but this has huge potential to me. We could all wear this stuff then syphon it off into the national power supply. Wear it at the gym and then use the electricity to watch a bit of TV when you get home… Alternatively it could become a bizarre form of industrial espionage: banks could employ people to innocently discharge 30,000 volts into the cash machines of competitors. The possibilities are endless!
For instance, it would be a useful ability when you are trapped in a meeting with your kid’s guidance counselor, who is telling you that your child is too smart and needs to dumb down if he wants to survive gym class.
I can’t say that that was one of the first applications to spring to mind, but, yes, I’m sure it would be handy then too.
I assume that the ampage is extremely low so I don’t think you’d be likely to kill anyone with it (unless maybe they have a pace-maker). I’ve not really studied static electricity closely, but I know that a shock from a Van der Graaf generator is fine for healthy people, and that is generated through fiction.
“I know that a shock from a Van der Graaf generator is fine for healthy people, and that is generated through fiction.”
You mean Van der Graaf generators make stuff up?
Yes, they’re renouned for it. ‘Barbara Cartland’ is just a pen name for a Va der Graff generator. I bet you didn’t know that. Y’see, it’s edumcayshonal coming on this blog.