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The electrostatic world of insects

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Re: The electrostatic world of insects

#21

Post by howenterprisey »

BoxOfRain wrote: post #11
codeflo wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a bad question, these units of measurements are always a bit confusing. You can similarly ask why for humans, rubbing a balloon is harmless, although that builds up 30 kV of static electricity, while touching a 230 V power socket can kill you. Voltage is merely the "pressure" that charged particles experience. Voltage alone tells you nothing about how much charge is actually available once electricity is all…

Hence the saying 'it's the volts that jolt and the mills that kill'.

I've usually heard "volts hurt, amps kill".

Re: The electrostatic world of insects

#23

Post by metalman »

dmd wrote: post #10
ocfnash wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a kid, the alliterative mnemonic we were taught was "current kills".

"It's the volts that jolt but the mils [milliamps] that kills."

thats all theory thing is that I mess with large two volt(nominal) storage cells,the largest are over 250lbs and sit like dumb beasts,waiting to oblige anyones low voltage requests,hundreds of amps on tap be nothing to bolt ,some nice shiny copper handles to the terminals and mist them down with some warm salt water I also mess around with microscopes,and compared to bugs,humans are very poorly made,so many tiny things are flawless living perfection,and some like wolf(jumping) spiders are smart,smart enough that they see us seeing them,and are ok with that one thing that I have observed that plays into the static electricity thing,is that many of the tiny critters that I watch,are impecably clean,no dust or dirt on them at all,perfectly clean,unlike a human finger,which is one zillabutt uggly thing,under magnification

Re: The electrostatic world of insects

#24

Post by dmd »

metalman wrote: post #23
dmd wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's the volts that jolt but the mils [milliamps] that kills."

thats all theory thing is that I mess with large two volt(nominal) storage cells,the largest are over 250lbs and sit like dumb beasts,waiting to oblige anyones low voltage requests,hundreds of amps on tap be nothing to bolt ,some nice shiny copper handles to the terminals and mist them down with some warm salt water I also mess around with microscopes,and compared to bugs,humans are very poorly made,so many tiny thin…

are you ok man

Re: The electrostatic world of insects

#26

Post by anthk »

palata wrote: post #8

> Webs deformed instantly when jolted with static from flies, aphids, honeybees, and even water droplets. Spiders caught charged insects more easily. This is all so fascinating!

There was an electric/bug Pokémon ensembling an spider, now I know why.

https://m.bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Galvantula_(Pok%C3...

Yes, Pokémon has tons of real life weird biologycs inside. Such as that volcano snail, (Slugma/Magcargo) which exists IRL:

https://www.wired.com/2015/02/absurd-creature-of-the-week-sc...

Re: The electrostatic world of insects

#27

Post by w33n1s »

Really interesting article. Highlights something I think is so cool but have a hard time really articulating: how even within our own 3+1 dimensions, just changing your scale is an entirely different experience.

Re: The electrostatic world of insects

#28

Post by MrLeap »

Swizec wrote: post #20
highfrequency wrote: post #12

> The magic of animal electrostatics is all about size. Large animals don’t meaningfully experience nature’s static—we’re too big to feel it. “As humans, we are living mostly in a gravitational or fluid-dynamics world,” Ortega-Jiménez said. But for tiny beings, gravity is an afterthought. Insects can feel air’s viscosity. While the same laws of physics reign over Earth’s smallest and largest species, the balance of f…

Similar to this, one of the most mind-blowing papers I’ve read was Life at Low Reynold’s Number about how at the microorganism level water is virtually solid and inertia does not exist. https://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/gold/pdfs/purcell.pdf https://swizec.com/blog/week-9-life-at-low-reynolds-number/

Inertia doesn't exist? Wow that's hard to visualize. Perhaps the world does converge on cellular automata as you zoom in
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