Re: Charge of Electricity, vs. "electric charge"

[William Beaty <billb@ESKIMO.COM>]

On Mon, 22 Apr 2002, Bernard Cleyet wrote:

> Doesn't?   Not exactly.  The electrolytes I'm familiar with have too low a
> conductivity to have broad vis. wavelength reflectivity.  (prob. reflect fine at
> long wavelengths, e.g. microwave). I haven't seen it, but I suspect molten salt
> is "silvery"    Dense plasmas reflect fine, hard to detect tho, as are emitting
> light.

If we had enormous eyeballs which were sensitive to radio waves, then I
suppose that plasmas would look like silver objects.

Then there's copper chloride, etc.   The blue stuff is what moves during
an electric current.  But there should be an opposite flow of opposite
ions as well, yet that opposite flow is invisible.   "Electricity" is
really a moving blue stain.

In gel electrophoresis (DNA testing), the electric current is partly
composed of moving DNA fragments, no?

I've always wondered if an electric current in a thin film of salty jello
could be made visible by dropping small crystals of metal salts onto it.
Let them diffuse awhile in order to form colored polka-dots, then turn on
the amperes.  Are there any types of salt where the negative ion causes
the coloration?  If not, then the polka-dots would all move from positive
to negative.  Ions of different sizes would have different mobilities, so
you could have races between the spots of different color.


Another idea:  ever see those "elapsed time indicators" which are just a
mercury column in a glass capillary tube?  The "indicator" is a small
electrolyte-filled gap.  When electric current is applied, the mercury
metal on one side of the gap dissolves, and it electroplates out onto the
other side.  Dissolving metal donates electrons to the remaining metal,
which then drift along as an electric current in the metal.  I think the
drift velocity of this electrolyte gap is the same as the drift velocity
of the electron sea. Or maybe it's 2x slower if each mercury atom donates
two electrons to the conduction band (i.e. if the density of electrons is
2x the density of the metal in terms of particles per cubic volume.)
Visible electricity!  FOr sensible values of current density, it moves as
slow as growing grass, or as the hour hand on a clock.


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