UC Riverside Researchers' Discovery Of Electrostatic Spin Topples Century-old Theory

University Of California - Riverside / ScienceDaily.com ^ | April 2, 2003 | Anders Wistrom and Armik Khachatourian

[Libertarianize the GOP]

bump

[RightWhale]

bleeding-edge science fans

This might have been hot news in 1840. As it is, nothing will follow except that someone will possibly be doing his symplectic morphology operator homework tonight with a foil hat on his head.

[Flashlight]

I was gonna ask you a question about this, but I just noticed that you said the article made no sense to you.

Anyway, what I was going to ask is, could this phenomenom be modeled (or explained) by some simple modification to Maxwell's Laws, such as adding a fifth law, or adding one term to one of the existing four laws?

[sourcery]

The article is very dissatisfying. Are they claiming a new force, or that an old force works in new and/or different ways? Or what?

And what about independent confirmations?

[forsnax5]

This article made essentially no sense to me.

Rats. I was hoping you could shed some light on what the significance of this really is.

They're describing an experiment that sounds like it's out of introductory high school physics, and they state that the results were unexpected, "and could not be explained by available theory."

Then (as you noted) they say it was predicted by 200-year-old laws of voltage.

Perhaps this is just a case of looking at the law in retrospect and saying, "Oh, yeah, it *does* allow for this effect."

[general_re]

...why does my secretary's telephone cord get so darn twisted up every day that I'm forever having to let the thing swing free for a couple of minutes to untangle itself?

Because she wants a cordless phone? Never underestimate the power of malice...

[stanz]

May I.....the spin stops here.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Abstract: Three spherical conductors fixed in space and held at constant potential produces a rotational force that causes the conductors to rotate about their axis. The motor is described by an expression for the moment of force given by Coulomb's law complemented by Gauss' law of the electric potential. The observed rotation is likely to be general and apply to machines of all size scales where the electrostatic force is the dominant operative force. This would include systems ranging in size from molecular to macroscopic and be useful for devices that require rotational motion.

The word unexpected does not occur in the text of the article, nor does the word expected. I expect that the use of unexpected was a result to be expected from a journalist. I expect that those with access to the journal will want a link.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Thanks for the ping!

We need a math equation to fully understand this!

[techcor]

Ok. So if rotational momentum can be induced without friction how long until we get linear momentum induced without friction? I want a reactionless spin drive.

[AndrewC]

We need a math equation to fully understand this!

1 + 1 = 10

How is that for a start?

[Oberon]

That sock is converted into pure electrostatic spin.

Is there a law of conservation of socks? In other words, when a sock is converted into electrostatic spin in your dryer, does another dryer somewhere in the world have to house the conversion of spin back into a sock, in order to preserve equilibrium?

[UCANSEE2]

And now you know where those socks that don't fit you came from.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Thanks for your observation. I was sitting here puzzling over this thinking just what you wrote.

[longshadow]

Is there a law of conservation of socks? In other words, when a sock is converted into electrostatic spin in your dryer, does another dryer somewhere in the world have to house the conversion of spin back into a sock, in order to preserve equilibrium?

The sock's electrostatic spin is conserved via the transfer of energy thru the gryo-rotationally stabilized Black Hole inside the dryer to the Planet of Lint in a distant part of the Galaxy.....

[Captain Beyond]

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[Southack]

"When a DC voltage was applied to the spheres they began to rotate until the stiffness of the suspending wires prevented further rotation."

In my classes back in the day, we called this old effect The Right Hand Rule.

It's hardly something new...