Timeline for Why would a ionised potato explode violently?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
12 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Feb 21, 2022 at 19:39 | comment | added | Triatticus | Indeed as Emilio points out it has a technical term (which is itself a wiki article), but I find this "fun" example to also be instructive gravityandlevity.wordpress.com/tag/coulomb-bombs | |
| Feb 7, 2022 at 15:09 | answer | added | Arget | timeline score: 1 | |
| Dec 24, 2019 at 22:03 | comment | added | user137289 | @BobD While a steel ball could support such a force, a potato would disintegrate. | |
| Dec 24, 2019 at 21:45 | comment | added | Bob D | @Pieter Have no idea of the dimensions of a 120 g potato, but lets assume it is a sphere 3 inch in dia, and that half the unbalanced (say positive) charge calculated by the OP is concentrated at the each end of the diameter, then the repulsive Coulomb force would be about 2 x 10$^3$ N. | |
| Dec 24, 2019 at 20:37 | comment | added | user137289 | @BobD Maybe more relevant to calculate the acceleration of two potato halves at a distance of a few centimeters, with large charges. | |
| Dec 24, 2019 at 16:22 | comment | added | Bob D | I calculate the repulsive force between two protons separated by 0.1 nm (typical inter atomic distance) to be 10$^{-8}$ N | |
| Dec 24, 2019 at 16:18 | comment | added | Emilio Pisanty | No, you need to consider the work that is required to put together that amount of charge in a localised region of the specified size - as well as the fact that there is nothing stopping that energy from being liberated immediately. Like charges repel, and there is nothing holding the ones in your potato from violently pushing each other apart. The technical term to look for is 'Coulomb explosion'. | |
| Dec 24, 2019 at 15:14 | comment | added | cosimoNigro | I see, thanks for the tip @jac, I should have considered the charge density within the potato itself. | |
| Dec 24, 2019 at 15:00 | comment | added | jac | It is not just the charge in the potato that matters, it is the fact that these charges are close to each other. I think you should calculate the charge density in the potato and calculate the internal stress in the potato, i.e. the force normal to a section of 1 square cm. In order to do this you sould calculate first the mean distance between charges and then apply Coulomb's law. | |
| Dec 24, 2019 at 14:43 | history | edited | Gert | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Dec 24, 2019 at 14:38 | history | edited | cosimoNigro | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Dec 24, 2019 at 14:32 | history | asked | cosimoNigro | CC BY-SA 4.0 |