Here’s our top ten facts on electrostatics!…
- A normal spark of static electricity can be thousands of volts, but has very little current and lasts for a very short time. Hence no injuries!
- Electric fields work in a similar way to gravity! Except gravity always attracts but electric fields can either attract or repel.
- A bolt of lightning can measure up to three million volts, and it lasts less than one second!
- Static electricity is an arch enemy of computers. It can utterly destroy integrated circuits or cause the computer to reboot without warning!
- Ouch! A bolt of lightning can measure up to 3,000,000 V and the average temperature of it is around 28,000 °C! This is almost five times hotter than the surface of the Sun!
- Fascinated by lightning? The study of lightning is known as fulminology.
- The odds of being struck by lightning in your lifet ime are tiny (about 1 in 12,000), yet astraphobia, the fear of thunder and lightning, is the third most common phobia in America!
- When lightning strikes the ground it seeks out the shortest route to something with a positive charge, this might be a tree, a tall building or a person.
- Static statistics! About 2,000 people are killed worldwide by lightning each year.
- Hundreds of people survive lightning strikes every year! However, they often suffer from long term affects such as memory loss, dizziness, weakness and numbness.
By Mark Prince for Smart Learning.