What happened to Frank Clewer in Warrnambool 3

[Skogsgurra]

Hi,

I read in European papers about this guy Frank. The papers know that a combination of wool and synthetic fibers charged Frank "to the brink of self-ignition". Frank also produced sparks that could be seen outside the building and left marks in the carpet. Frank did not notice what was going on until he found a piece of burnt plastic in his car and wondered from where it came!

Is there anything in this story that is true? Or anywhere near the truth? All the normal ingredients were there - including a professor at a technical university and a fire brigade captain that measured 40 kV in Frank's jacket.

Gunnar Englund

http://www.gke.org

 

[jraef]

Funny story, but I'm not sold on it's authenticity.

Clewer, who after leaving the building discovered he had scorched a piece of plastic on the floor of his car, returned to seek help from the firefighters.

"We tested his clothes with a static electricity field metre 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.

What would a "static electricity field metre" be, and why would a fire department have one? Some stories say 30kV, others say 40kV, and most say "shy of spontaneous combustion". What the heck does that mean? Combustion of what? I can cause combustion of some kinds of clothing with far less than 30kV! If by chance it is real, it appears to have been written by amateurs at best. I checked for it on Urban Legends and they have nothing yet, but time will tell. I submitted it to them for investigation.

By the way Gunnar, does this have any relation to your nickname?

http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/accidentsmishaps/a/skogsra.htm

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[Skogsgurra]

Half right,

The Skogs part is the same. It means Forest. Gurra is short the old viking name Gunnar. It all comes from me being the one that lives in the forest. The two other Gurra in our little department lived in the city. The were nicknamed N-Gurra and P-Gurra. What was left for me? 0-Gurra or I-Gurra. (We were working with power semiconductors and the PIN diodes were popular at that time.

The RA (RÅ, if you have the correct key-board) is a man's dream. She was mostly seen by lonely men watching their carbon piles in the deep forests. They did this for weeks and couldn't leave the pile. So they were thinking about women a lot. Working in the fumes from the carbon piles and never having enough sleep made them hallucinate. First thing they saw was what they wanted to see - a young and attractive woman (which I - I can assure you - am not).

We keep the tradition alive. Our little village community have just started a little carbon pile and there are two or three men from the village keeping watch over it. Day and night. Sometimes, the young women in the village dress like skogsra and visit the men.

This link (the fourth picture)

http://www.karlskoga.se/granbergsdal/våra_evenemang.html

shows a carbon pile (kolmila) in action. The second picture shows "cow bingo". We all have bet on which square the cow will leave her droppings. This year, she didn't.

Gunnar Englund

http://www.gke.org

 

[itsmoked]

Wow..skogsgurra... Most illuminating. [eye's wide open - head shaking]

 

[IRstuff]

Static electricity field meters are found in pretty much every single electronics lab where electronic components and boards are handled. The field meters are used in conjunction with wrist straps and other measures to ensure that parts are not damaged by ESD

TTFN

 

[Skogsgurra]

Well, all that is good and interesting - but what happened to Frank? Any Aussie that did see this?

Gunnar Englund

http://www.gke.org

 

[logbook]

I agree with IRstuff.

Furthermore the author of the article quoted above doesn't know the difference between voltage and current and therefore qualifies as technically illiterate. The level of static present doesn’t tell you much about the energy present since the energy depends on the voltage (squared)and the capacitance.

Typically static on clothing would have plenty of ability to destroy small semiconducting devices but not to ignite the clothing!

 

[IRstuff]

What stikes as typical urban legend is the "synthetic clothing emergency protocol" cited in the Register version:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/09/16/static_jacket/

The other hallmark of a hoax is the citation of a "scientist." No one in a scientific field would self-identify as "scientist," since that removes any hint of possible qualification or authority for making any statements of fact or theory.

Finally, 30kV static discharge is hardly unusual; it's unusual for the average person, since it sounds like a large number, but 30 kV is quite typical for ESD protection test levels.

The bit about the clothing continuing to generate "voltage" is also quite amusing. Has someone found a perpetual source? Static charge generation requires movement of objects against each other. For a pile of clothes to continue to generate charge is not possible.

This reference is quite long, but makes no mention of the mysterous "scientist." Likewise, there's no mention of the perpetual charge generation.

http://the.standard.net.au/articles/2005/09/16/1126750111141.html

TTFN

 

[IRstuff]

Sarah Scopelianos appears to be the original author of the original article. She's apparently around 22-23, so may be somewhat forgiven for overdramatization.

Dennington is about 1 mi outside of Warrnambool, according to GoogleEarth. Ms. Scopelianos is a reporter for the Warrnambool Standard.

What's really fascinating is that it's only 2 days after the original byline and the story has made it into:

http://www.aboutjobinterviews.com/

Of course, that freshness of the article suggests that it'll be a while before it gets debunked

TTFN

 

[Skogsgurra]

Mighty fine research, IR!

The link to "The Standard" leads to an amusing article. The last sentence: "He said Mr Clewer's clothes were at no stage dangerous because they were low in amps which could be deadly" is the jewel in the crown.

Why is it that good electric engineers are not consulted in cases like this? Are we that hard to find? MarkE; do you have any first-hand information? Yes, I know, NZ is a bit away, but you may be the nearest reliable (and sane) person down there.

Gunnar Englund

http://www.gke.org

 

[IRstuff]

The Reuters article gives some more detail that was added to the original story:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050916/od_nm/australia_electricity_dc

The bit about self-ignition is quite fascinating.

Gosden is apparently a real person at U of Sydney:

http://www.ee.usyd.edu.au/staff_eie.php?id=34

But note that his quote from the Reuters article is cleverly embellished in this article:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national...l/2005/09/16/1126750129173.html?oneclick=true

Apparently, the news community is unaware of easy it is to generate 40 kV, unlike:

http://www.physics.udel.edu/~watson/phys208/vandegraf.html

TTFN

 

[IRstuff]

Ok, I'm better than that. here's the image from the last link:

TTFN

 

[Skogsgurra]

Sorry IR - you already got my PLS!

Gunnar Englund

http://www.gke.org

 

[IRstuff]

Can you tell that it's a slow news day for me as well?

TTFN

 

[Bung]

Sounds like some Aussie illywhacker (Aussie term approximating to B***s****er) taking advantage of a passing tourist. Much any local anywhere likes to do with passing tourists, I suppose!

Warnambool is a nice place, but it's a bit far out of town (let's start a war! ).

There are plenty designs out there on the internet for making a van der Graaf generator using old pantyhose and an aluminium can. Not exactly rocket science. Or take off your jumper on a dark night and watch the light show.

Bung
Life is non-linear...

 

[pennpoint]

"We tested his clothes with a static electricity field metre 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 dont know, what do you think a "Current of 40,000 VOLTS. what are you thinking.
This is so much BS. Please stop it now... I beg you.

pennpoint

 

[IRstuff]

I think that pales in comparison to the second part of the quote, e.g., "one step shy of spontaneous combustion."

Be afraid...

TTFN

 

[MacGyverS2000]

"Within about five minutes, the carpet started to erupt."

OK, what does "erupt" mean in this context, especially considering it took the carpet five minutes to do it?



"There were several scorch marks in the carpet, and we could hear a cracking noise -- a bit like a whip -- both inside and outside the building,"

They heard the noise OUTSIDE of the building? What, were there sonic booms happening fro this "electricity"?!

Dan
Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[Skogsgurra]

Yes - it is a mystery.

I talked to one of the journalists that wrote about Frank and his jacket. She says that she got the story from Reuter's and since that is a big news agency, she thought that the story was true.

I think that it is about time to start SFPEDTP (Society For Prevention of Electric Disinformation to the Public). Every daily paper should have an EE attached who can guide the journalists. It will be a much better world where we do not have to read about 10 000 volt currents, energy savings equal to 10 terrawatts (find two faults) and be assured that it is essential to be well grounded when working with electric equipment.

Gunnar Englund

http://www.gke.org

 

[jraef]

We have recently had 2 underground electrical substation explodions here in the San Francisco Bay Area. I have marveled at the variety of misinformation spewing from the TV journalists. The best one last night was that "the electrical surge blew a manhole cover up into the bottom of a car driving over it!" Another station reported that the surge caused the manhole to fly 30ft in the air and land on TOP of the car. They couldn't even get the trajectory of the manhole cover correct, so I wasn't going to waste my time correcting the electrical issue.

The other one was trajic in that a passing pedestiran was severely burned when a transformer vault under the sidewalk blew up, but they repeatedly reported that she was electrcuted, when in fact she was burned by the exploding oil.

"Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more." Nikola Tesla
Read the Eng-Tips Site Policies at faq731-376
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