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Re: Charge on the Earth



Mark. On second thought, I take it back I don't agree with *everything*
you wrote, although I do still agree with its thrust.

You wrote,

... a small parallel plate capacitor (plate area 1 cm^2 and plate
separation of 0.1 cm) charged to 12 V will store a charge of about 120 nC,
which corresponds to a charge density of 1,200,000 nC/m^2.

In fact, with its capacitance of just under a pF it would only store 12 pC
for a charge density of 120 nC/m^2. This is still quite a bit more than
that on the surface of the earth, but the excess charge might be on the
order of 1%.

John
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A. John Mallinckrodt email: mallinckrodt@csupomona.edu
Professor of Physics voice: 909-869-4054
Cal Poly Pomona fax: 909-869-5090
Pomona, CA 91768 office: Building 8, Room 223