In reply to Jones Beene's message of Thu, 4 May 2006 07:19:42 -0700 (PDT): Hi, [snip] >There is a 'sort of' mundane explanation - mundane to >a Jules Verne mentality maybe - for a hypothetical >method whereby electrolyzed water vapor can act as a >fuel. It actually should be the starting point for >this discussion, and one of the Aussies has apparently >mentioned something similar. It is the simplest >explanation, even though there is definitely ZERO >orgone or hocus pocus. > >I will call it the exploding-plasma-capacitor theory. >Everyone knows that electrolytic capacitors can >explode when the applied voltage gets to be too high, >everyone knows that a *plasma* can itself operate like >(and be) a capacitor, of sorts, everyone knows that a >charged mass of water vapor at less than atmospheric >pressure can be a plasma, everyone knows that the >closer the plates are forced in a variable plate >capacitor - the higher the voltage. Not everyone has >connected the dots, however. [snip] This leads me to wonder. Suppose that energetic particles passing through a gas knock say 4 or more electrons off lots of atoms, with sufficient energy for each free electron to have passed it's "escape" velocity. The resulting plasma will be neutral overall, however the free electrons will on average be closer to one another than to any given ion, simply due to the fact that there are more of them. The question is:
Does the repulsive force they feel from one another exceed the attractive force they feel toward the ions (due to reduced distance between electrons), and would thus the neutral plasma expand? Or do the repulsive and attractive forces cancel out exactly? Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://users.bigpond.net.au/rvanspaa/ Competition provides the motivation, Cooperation provides the means.
