EXCERPTS:
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.
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."
"We tested his clothes with a static electricity field meter and measured a current of 40,000 volts, which is one step shy of spontaneous combustion, where his clothes would have self-ignited," Barton said.
"I’ve been firefighting for over 35 years and I’ve never come across anything like this," he said.
Do you suppose he was wearing his “danger-high voltage” slacks that day?
Current is measured in amps, not volts. Volts measure potential.
Funky stole my comment. This story doesn’t ring true.
+J.M.J+
Sounds like a new experiment for the Mythbusters.
[I love that show, BTW :-)]
In Jesu et Maria,
Sounds like this could be related to Spontaneous Human Combustion.
“Sounds like this could be related to Spontaneous Human Combustion.”
So maybe this is what happened to that drummer from Spinal Tap.
That’s nuthin. I hear they have jack rabbits down there the size of people and summer comes at Christmas time.
A Super Hero!
Was he from the planet Ultron?
Shocking!