An electrostatic mystery …

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

Sorry, Double posted again, I need to get to grips with this posting

Dave W

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

Good point Brian, but was so marked when travelling in my own car but not others, I suspected that it was possibly non conductive tyres, from my work on aircraft I was aware of bonding to dissipate static and aircraft tyres used conductive rubber which helped dissipate static as soon as the wheels touched down.

Dave W

[Mike PooleParticipant @mikepoole82104]

The girls in the trim shop regularly reported getting a shock from their sewing machine, no fault would be found with the machine or it’s earthing so the problem will be the girls clothes and the material they were sewing. My wife and I get shocks when leaving my Ford which has a man made seat covering but my other car with leather seats is no problem. I have on occasions experienced nausea when my bed spins which is most odd as it is very solid, it’s does seem to happen after over doing it down the pub, luckily it’s a long time since that has happened, seems that drinking responsibly does have advantages.

Mike

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

Man made seat covering appears to be the culprit, this was during the 70’s and the fashion was for a lot of clothes to be made out of man made materials so the combination of both probably made the situation worse. I remember going to the other side of the Atlantic in the 70’s and hotels in America were notorious for nylon carpets in hotel rooms and with the air con helping to generate static you could get numerous shocks throughout the day, I seemed to attract quite a few. It might seem that I was affluent being able to travel to America in the 70’s but that wasn’t the case it was all in the line of duty, I travelled with the Air Force, a tough job but someone had to do it.

Dave W

[Nick Clarke 3Participant @nickclarke3]

In the 80's I taught computing in a room full of BBC Micros. These ran on individual 5 1/4" floppy disks. One pupil kept having problems – The disk would not read. Checking carefully we found out that if his partner handled the disk everything went well, but if this guy touched it or took it out of the envelope – no go.

We never did find out the reason, but he was also the only one to get shocks off the nylon carpet tiles as well, so could it have been a static build up?

We changed to Macs with 3 1/2" disks soon after which solved the problem and the issue has presumably faded away with them.

[Sam StonesParticipant @samstones42903]

Prompted by the various ideas above, with hardly any correlation to model engineering, I can offer no connection between static charges and travel sickness. Indeed, this 1^st part of my contribution mentions nothing of the subject. Escape here

However, crossing the Bay of Biscay in a troopship (The Empire Ken) late February ’57, I was the only one of our group of eleven who had not ‘been to the side’.

Determined to test my endurance at the risk of being ‘clapped in irons’, and in near total darkness I stepped over the barrier marked ‘Out of Bounds’, and eased myself around to the very stern of the ship.

It was pitching to a level where (I suspect from the vibrations) the propeller was emerging from the ocean; perhaps pitching as much as 30 feet (say 10 metres). After five minutes or more, I was satisfied at my endurance, and concluded this rather foolish experiment.

Having thus confirmed my previous experiences (the IoM ferry from Fleetwood a couple of times, and a ‘pleasure’ cruise off the Scarborough Head, complete with a generous encouragement to be seasick), I was convinced that I was immune to travel sickness.

Not so!

A few years later, I was obliged to ‘accept’ a car lift from my boss with the promise of a ‘chicken and chips’ supper, followed by homemade apple pie with cream, if I would navigate us across London.

That was when I discovered that I wasn’t immune to travel sickness. Head down to read the map in relative darkness was apparently the perfect combination. Fortunately, I didn’t disgrace myself, and have learned since from a friend who navigated during car rallies, that it was the heads down thing while being tossed around willy nilly.

So as not to jeopardise their chances of a good result he told me that, under those circumstances, he would hold open the car door and lean out to release his last meal.

Foot note:

We crossed London without incident, and I managed to enjoy the ‘chicken and chips’ supper, with homemade apple pie and cream, thus avoiding embarrassment.

Sam

[Anthony KnightsParticipant @anthonyknights16741]

I once got sent to a site where the customer was reported getting electric shocks from the public address amplifier. The equipment checked out OK. The problem was due to the customer building up a static charge, when walking about on a synthetic material carpet and then discharging this via the earthed amplifier.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Anthony Knights on 16/07/2019 07:22:27:

I once got sent to a site where the customer was reported getting electric shocks from the public address amplifier. The equipment checked out OK. The problem was due to the customer building up a static charge, when walking about on a synthetic material carpet and then discharging this via the earthed amplifier.

.

There is a related problem, common in many offices, where the occupants seem quite convinced that there are fleas in the carpet … an unpleasant tingling around the ankles.

MichaelG.

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

The problem with the "static charge causes travel sickness" theory is, how do you know you are charged when inside a metallic object? On the other hand, there is a lot of evidence for the placebo effect where an intervention that is thought to be beneficial has an actual positive effect.

When sailing in rough weather, one finds that going below often causes nausea from the combination of seemingly random accelerations sensed by the ear without any corresponding visual input. This explains Sam's experience navigating around London.

I read somewhere that the navy experimented with an "artificial horizon", that projected a band of light on the wardroom walls that was kept truly horizontal with a gyro, so that one had a constant visual reference.

[John HardingParticipant @johnharding75458]

To go back to the original topic, Teyler's museum, Haarlem in Holland contains a collection of all the earliest equipment used. This includes the largest leydens made, as much as 6ft high. The scientific glass ware are often works of art. It was founded in 1784.

I visited the museum in 1970, pushed the door open and found i had the place to myself. If I visited Holland again a visit to to the museum would be at the top the list. Taking a quick look at the web site it appears unchanged (except you now book on line).

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by John Harding on 16/07/2019 12:42:17:

To go back to the original topic, Teyler's museum, Haarlem in Holland contains a collection of all the earliest equipment used. This includes the largest leydens made, as much as 6ft high. The scientific glass ware are often works of art. It was founded in 1784.

I visited the museum in 1970, pushed the door open and found i had the place to myself. If I visited Holland again a visit to to the museum would be at the top the list. Taking a quick look at the web site …

.

Thanks for that, John

I will search for the Teyler's web site this evening.

We have fond memories of a visit to the the Boerhaave, some years ago: **LINK**

https://rijksmuseumboerhaave.nl/engels/

MichaelG.

[Alistair Robertson 1Participant @alistairrobertson1]

On a related vein I remember a local shop keeper who could tell the voltage and health of a battery simply by touching the terminals with the fingers on opposite hands. A local physics teacher refused to think this was possible but he went to visit the shop with his trusty meter. The shopkeeper called Bert was able to tell him which batteries that he had in stock were the best for voltage and he told him which would last the longest when in use. He could tell the difference as good as the meter could read.

Bert suffered from static shocks from nearly everything he touched and used a cloth over his fingers when ringing up the till. When he forgot or misjudged his prod at the keys it was a bit like a scene with the till from "Open All Hours" !

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

I found when on long sea voyages back in the 50’s, if the weather was really rough, Bay of Biscay etc., then a good place to be was up front of the ship and preferably out in the air and this would chase away any tendencies to “visit the side”. Worked for me during a typhoon in the Bay of Bengal. Have only ever been seasick once and that was when I was 8 years old and having boarded in Southampton early evening I woke the following morning entering the Bay of Biscay in a Force 10, it was rough! I am sure that it was due to being below in an enclosed cabin where you have no reference horizon and your balance mechanism is confused and working overtime with no visual reference to rely on. Spent nearly 5 months at sea at various times and only seasick the once and never airsick having flown in many aircraft in all weathers.

Dave W

[Mike PooleParticipant @mikepoole82104]

On a rather rough crossing to the Isle of Man a friend and I found the rolling and pitching was least in a bar that was still open but very quiet in the centre of the ship so we started as we meant to go on and had a few beers

Mike

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