can static electricity make you defy gravity?

Question

yes or no

Answer 1

I would say yes. Reason is I saw at one time on the internet a site that explained about a person that was in a manufacturing plant, that was by a belt that was moving, and they were making plactic wrap or something like that. Anyhow he tripped and began to fall, but was stopped by some forcefield from the static I suppose, and was held at an angle, in which he could not penetrate. They tried to create the same effect again and couldn't. but I truly believe that it happened.

Answer 2

Absolutly. It happens to you every day. How is it that you are sitting in your chair, or laying in your bed. There has to be some force which opposes or "defys" gravity. That force is tada your electromagnetic force which is the same force as your static electricity!

Think about it like this, if you jump off of a 2 story building. You have a force of gravity that is the entire world pulling down on you! And well when you land how much does the cement that you land on actually move? A few hundred microns? Maybee a mm?! So the electromagnetic force between youre body and the cement opposed the force from the entire earth pulling down on you for 2 stories!

Answer 3

We still cannot DEFY the laws of gravity. The only thing we are doing is balancing forces.

If a static charge is holding you at a point above the ground, that means that it is exerting the same force as gravity in the opposite direction. It isn't eliminating gravity at all, just working against it.

It's the same thing when a rocket launches. A force is pushing in the opposite direction of gravity, causing gravity to be overpowered, but never defied.

We understand gravity the least of all the fundamental forces, but any method of defying it would still be highly theoretical, and likely wouldn't involve any kind of conventional force like charges or magnetism.

Answer 4

It is possible. Gravity is by far the weakest of the four fundamental forces, very weak compared to electromagnetic force. (If you doubt that, use a magnet to pick stuff up with.) Since static electricity is, well, electricity, then it should in theory be able to cause something to go against the force of gravity.

However, a problem with static electricity is that it is comprised of electric charges that can scatter easily. It's probably only practical for rather light items with a large surface area. (Tissue paper comes to mind.) There's probably to real way to harness static electricity for a useful purpose.

Answer 5

Sure. If the static electric force is equal and opposite to the gravitational force then the net force on you would be zero, thus, in a sense, defying gravity.

Answer 6

Theoretically you could, but the amount of charge needed to hold you up could be pretty large and it is likely that THAT much charge concentrated in one place, like your body will cause dielectric breakdown of the surrounding air and you will see a massive spark from your body to whatever conductor is near you. It could hurt a lot and might even kill you!

Let's see:
your weight = mg and you are hovering over a plate with charge q
You also have charge q on your body.
so the amount of charge you need would be
q=√(4πR².ε.mg)

Where R is the distance of you from the surface. ε is the permittivity of the material between you and the plate, probably air. You could write the regular two body gravitational equation instead of mg.

I have seen something similar happen but not with human beings. I have seen a foam cup hover over the rest of the stack when the plastic bag containing the cups was pulled up to remove the cups.

Answer 7

Not particularly. It can be utilized to make a few lovely small items seem to drift, however they are not precisely defying gravity. Just being balanced on a extra severe, localized drive.

Answer 8

I've only seen it done with small things like pieces of paper and a comb. I don't know that a human can retain enought static electricity to try this, and it wouldn't last very long.

Answer 9

static elect always goes to groun... cannot defy gravity

Answer 10

NOTHING will make you "defy" gravity.

However, some things will toss your azz around like you won't believe.