The Factory Floor - 2018-10-14

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1:33 AM

Can someone with more experience in this field (pun intended) double check my answer? I'm want to make sure this answer is plausible. worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/127497/54384

3 hours later…

4:50 AM

@JohnLocke I don't think the plasma would go forever. You can only generate so many columbs of static charge from the electrons you stripped, so at some point the Volts per meter will be too small to keep the plasma ionized

But it's probably be spectacular enough to reach the ground

A few electrons stripped from a hundred kilograms of matter is the kind of charge that makes mother Earth giggle slightly. You silly humans =)

I'd say mother Earth needs to lose a few pounds, but she's beautiful just the way she is.

Journeyman Geek

ooi! Real planets have curves!

7 hours later…

12:00 PM

@CortAmmon So the plasma would grow to a certain size, at which point it would start to shrink again because the plasma would de-ionize. Will the effect be a sustained ball of lightning? Or will the plasma grow and then shrink when it cools and then surge back again when more electrons move in? In other words, will the ball of plasma stay the same size, or will the activator-inhibitor feedback cause it to pulse?

2 hours later…

2:04 PM

@JohnLocke The question doesn't specify how the electrons are stripped away, only that they are. If we assume that through magical means the electrons just vanish then any matter in that field will violently repel each other as a Coulomb Explosion.

If non-magical means are used then there will need to be some electromagnetic force to remove/strip away those electrons. The means of removal could be lasers, super powerful magnets, whatever. Any and all of these approaches have a finite range to them.

There may be lightning as the electrons are dispelled but I think it would be hard to see the lightning from the explosion caused by all the freshly ionized nuclei deciding they have other places to be and leave in a hurry.

@Green At some point, though, there would be a balance between atoms rushing in and those rushing out, right? So with equal forces in both directions, shouldn't it reach a net equilibrium in which the amount in is the same as amount out?

Then the explosions will act as air pressure in the opposite direction.

@JohnLocke Yes. Plasmas do eventually reach equilibrium. I'm more familiar with plasmas contained in a conductive vessel, not what happens when they reach equilibrium in a free atmosphere.

Also, one of the comments on the accepted answer indicates that the energy released from this kind of action would be 70 billion gigatons of TNT. At that point, lighting doesn't figure in.

@Green So would the explosions eventually quiet down as less matter could get into the field because of the repulsion of the stuff in the field? After the initial explosion, I would think that lightning becomes more of a factor.

2:21 PM

@JohnLocke I stopped trying to figure out what would happen after the first explosion. Assuming that the energy output from electron stripping is right, and it's released at approximately the same time (less than a second) then so much energy would be released that the body disappears as does much of the surrounding environment.

Orders of magnitude (energy)

This list compares various energies in joules (J), organized by order of magnitude. == Below 1 J == == 1 to 105 J == == 106 to 1011 J == == 1012 to 1017 J == == 1018 to 1023 J == == Over 1024 J == == SI multiples == This SI unit is named after James Prescott Joule. As with every International System of Units (SI) unit named for a person, the first letter of its symbol is upper case (J). However, when an SI unit is spelled out in English, it is treated as a common noun and should always begin with a lower case letter (joule)—except in a situation where any word in that position...

There was only one reference for 10^28 J and that was for the kinetic energy of our orbiting moon. If the moon slams back into Earth, lighting will be the least of your problems.

And...I don't have any idea about electric discharges with enough energy to fry a significant portion of a planet.

Maybe the lighting would calm down? There's so much energy involved here that I can only make it as far as the first explosion.

It's plausible that enough energy has been released to alter Earth's orbit significantly.

2:39 PM

@Green What if the sphere started smaller and gradually grew to a certain size (assuming a non-earth-ravaging initial size)? The initial explosion would be much smaller. Then at least the Earth is intact long enough to find out what the lightning will do.

@JohnLocke how small an initial sphere are you proposing?

@Green Starting at the size of a few atoms. Small enough that the explosion doesn't throw the Earth off its axis or split it open before the lightning can have an effect. I'm just trying to figure out what will happen if you handwave the first explosion.

2:54 PM

@JohnLocke a few atoms wide is a few nanometers in width. If you strip the electrons from an area that small with say a <=500 femtosecond, >100MW pulse, you'll get a short lived plasma of electrons and nuclei that persists for about 10 to 20 picoseconds.

So, what we're looking for is a volume of matter that contains enough electrons to overcome the dialectric forces around that volume.

afk a few.

3:21 PM

@Green I'm saying that the field would keep growing after that, I just want to handwave the first explosion because other answers have covered that.

@JohnLocke Just checking to make sure I understand: The first explosion has happened but somehow this electron expulsion field stays in the same place. You want to know what happens afterward?

The sequence as I understand it is: 1) Person walks into field 2) Field turned on 3) Person and field volume explode. 4) Earth has a really bad day. 5)....this is where you want to explore?

3:38 PM

@JohnLocke I think the result should be at least as awesome as youtube.com/watch?v=95tq5J6ioF0

But it can't possibly be as well executed as the coil-work from youtube.com/watch?v=Q3oItpVa9fs =)

hey there @CortAmmon

@Green I think the order is 1) Field turns on 2) Somehow, explosion is not violent enough to have a big impact (other answers already explored what the explosion will do) 3) The particles coming out of the field and the particles in balance out, and airflow stabilizes 4) Lightning is now noticeable. Electrons flow into the field, causing lightning. 5) Lightning creates plasma, which is conductive, so more electricity flows in from farther away. 6) This causes the plasma/lightning to expand.

@Shalvenay Heyas!

@CortAmmon how're things going?

@Green How far does it expand? Does it reach a point where it stops expanding? If so, does it shrink, or just stay at that size? Assuming humans haven't been completely electrocuted/thunderclapped to death, my answer already explores how they will die when approaching the lightning.

3:54 PM

So by a Quora answer (quora.com/…) there's about 10^28 electrons in the body

And a coulumb is on the order of 10^18 electrons

So the charge from all your electrons is going to be about -10 million columbs

The real question is going to be what voltage do all these charges end up at.

According to wikipedia, a lightning strike releases about 350C. An alkaline battery, can cycle about 5000C befpore getting exhausted

Ah ha! I found the equation $x$

V = 1/(4*pi*epsilon) * Q/r

where Q is the charge, r is the distance away from a charge, and epsilon is the permitivity of space

So if you're 1m away from this ball of electrons, you'll feel twice as much electric ptoentail as if you were 2m away

Which also will apply to the forces felt by any given electron in the cloud. The bigger the cloud gets, the lower the potential it deals with.

A lightning strike is about 8km long, so it could get 200km if it were to discharge in a straight line. A reasonable chunk of the way towards low earth orbit

Which brings up a question: you have a highly energized ball of electrons which is willing to travel 200km as a plasma-fueled lighting bolt. You also have a bundle of highly energized protons who wish nothing but to reverse what just happened to them. How would you prevent them from reuiniting? That's like trying to keep a snake from escapeing their cage *shakes fist*

4:50 PM

@CortAmmon I would guess that there is a huge amount of electrons in the air. Part of why lightning strikes are short is because they don't have infinite electricity behind them. This field can maintain a constant concentration gradient, so the charges will not be equalized until there are no electrons. Your 200km is a good start, but if the lightning were sustained, more plasma means that the bolt would be bigger. The gradient is much more extreme in this case too. Thanks for the number, that m

Makes a global lightning strike plausible

@JohnLocke Are you assuming a continous generation of electrons (perhaps from athe atoms of air flowing through the field)?

I've just been playing with the one-time case of a person stepping through it

Obligatory XKCD: what-if.xkcd.com/140

@CortAmmon Yes, because of the huge number of electrons that are in the atmosphere (I have no data for the amount, but I'm sure it is huge). At some point, though, the atmosphere will be exausted of electrons and the lightning will die down. Unless the lightning reaches the solar wind, but I'm not sure about the feasibility of that.

@CortAmmon Yes, I've seen that one. But that only talks about what would be the initial explosion in this case. I want to ignore the explosion because other answers have explained this. Green told me that the explosion will be the equivalent of stopping the moon's orbit. If humans don't survive the creation of the field, the story will not be very interesting. "One day, an explosion from a field killed everyone and blew the earth open. The end."

5:12 PM

hey there @Mithrandir24601

Mithrandir24601

@Shalvenay Rytsas! How're things? Just sitting down with some nice hot chocolate :)

@Mithrandir24601 alright here, but have to go AFK for a while

5:39 PM

@FoxElemental I read parts 1 and 2 today, nice job on the story! I hope that the AI doesn't just suck the life out of everyone and be done with it.

6:36 PM

@JohnLocke I think that's what Cort and I are saying. The field turns on, everyone dies and the Earth gets one hell of a pimple.

6:54 PM

@Green I know, but that's too anticlimactic. I just need to know how far the lightning will reach and whether it will get to the Sun assuming there is no explosion.

Should I ask this in a question? The premise is a bit different than what the asker wanted.

7:07 PM

@JohnLocke The other thing I'm thinking is that, if you do indeed get past the explosion, and are interested in what happens after the first 10ms, you're going to have to take into account both the stripped eelctrons and the stripped protons. What additional steps have been done to prevent them from rapidly reuniting would be critical for predicting what happens next.

If you're not careful, the answer in 99% of the situations will be "electricity arcs from one side of hte field, around the field to the other side, newutralizing everything.

If not, the next quesion is what sort of potential well prevented them from getting together, and what kind of absurd power source is needed to make that a reality.

@CortAmmon The original question asks what happens if the electrons just disappear.

Mithrandir24601

Sorry, what's the question here?

@CortAmmon Wow, that one was really cool

3 hours later…

10:13 PM

@JohnLocke Are you hoping for the kind of lightning that is seen around some volcanic ash clouds? A big primary explosion, a tall column of ejecta/ash then lots of lightning from the ash cloud to the ground?

@Green I was thinking more like a Tesla coil, but I don't know if that's possible

@JohnLocke Well, the ash cloud lightning looks like it can be sustained over an extended duration. I don't think you'll get something like a Tesla coil. What attributes of the Tesla coil do you want to replicate?

10:44 PM

@Green I really don't know, I am just thinking the lightning will create plasma, and the lightning will circle the globe

Because the plasma will be like a wire for electrons right to the field where they are absorbed. Following the concentration gradient, electrons in the air will jump to the plasma, creating more plasma.

11:07 PM

@JohnLocke Lightning is both plasma and electrical current. If you put enough current through matter (gas, liquid or solid) then some of the atoms will ionize and lose their electrons; that's your plasma. Once the plasma is made, it is sustained by electrical current leaving the plasma or an electrical field keeping the electrons from returning to the ionized and neutral molecules.

@Green Right

I just want to find out if it will encircle the globe or not

@JohnLocke How big an electrical field are we talking to get this started? Is it the original question, where 70-ish kg of matter is suddenly and completely ionized? or, this is what you want to know.

?

@Green I think it will be easier to understand if I just start a question. Maybe I am not making the question clear.

@JohnLocke I'd be happy to look at whatever you Sandbox.

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Oct '1814

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