yahoo news: "Power-dressing man leaves trail of destruction"

[Beam Me Up]

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.

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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."

/snip/


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050916/od_nm/australia_electricity_dc

[ret5hd]

1. Are they going to start checking the labels on our clothes...

before we board an airplane?

[warrior1]

4. I don't believe this

I'll just bet yahoo news got, got.

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. I think this guy needs to buy some hemp clothes. Get rid of the

syntehtic stuff.

[elehhhhna]

3. thought it was anothe GW in NO thread. nevermind.

[Beam Me Up]

7. LOL

:rofl:

[SheepyMcSheepster]

5. wow

that's a new one.

[Enraged_Ape]

6. This is bogus

If he were walking along some huge carpet all day long and all the while picking up charge from that, and if he had some sort of thin rubber soles on his shoes so that he acted like a giant capacitor, I might think he could build up enough charge separation to give him a nice jolt when he touched anything grounded. But 40,000 V? And from the contact of his jacket with his shirt? I sincerely doubt it.

If you can generate that much electrical potential with your shirt and jacket, then my friends, we have solved all of the energy crises in this world.

[Kali]

8. I hate when that happens...

:silly: :nuke:

[Garbo 2004]

9. Well it's an aussie story in aussie national & local press fwiw.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,16628269-29277,00.html

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200509/s1461751.htm

http://the.standard.net.au/articles/2005/09/16/1126750111141.html

[Beam Me Up]

12. "Mr Clewer's jacket ... is continuing to give off voltage" !!!!!

That's what the abc news links says, last sentence!

[spuddonna]

10. Brought to you by the Cotton Industry... Wear cotton, or else! n/t

[daninthemoon]

11. Isn't that one of Spiderman's suprfoes?