Violation of Coulomb’s law???

An ionizer I built has been working in my kitchen for many years.

Yesterday, for fun, I decided to see how it would work NOT with the turntable I made (a metal bar 11 cm long, yellow in the photo), but with a massive frame of multi-toothed plates from an old spoiled ionizer (Chinese, of course!).

I expected, of course, that if it turns, it will be extremely slow due to the large angular momentum (length 30 cm and mass is also large!)

Indeed, it began to rotate very slowly and gradually accelerated to one revolution per second (the small one turns dozens of times faster).

But THE MAIN THING is the direction of rotation!!!

I expected it to spin in the direction opposite to the points of the teeth on it. Naturally, the electronic charge accumulates on the tips of the teeth and flows into the air there due to the tunneling effect and bombardment with positive air ions, creating an “electronic wind”. Due to the reaction force of this “wind” and from the bombardment of positive ions, the frame rotates in the direction opposite to the points of the pins (as in my usual turntable) or the points of the teeth.

What was my surprise when I saw that the frame was rotating teeth forward!!!

This is a clear violation of Coulomb’s law, because electrons repel each other and THEREFORE diverge from each other at the maximum possible distance, that is, they accumulate at the most “DISTANT” points.

How can such a “paradox” be explained?

For there are no paradoxes in nature. Paradoxes arise in our befuddled brains when one familiar dogma bumps into another, equally “grounded” and equally familiar.

So far, my explanation is as follows:

Due to the longer length of the toothed part compared to the opposite one, straight and smooth, the concentration of electrons there turned out to be LESS than on the smooth one, and the electron wind formed just on the smooth side. If the concentration of electrons there, and therefore the electrostatic field created by them, is greater, then the tunneling effect and the bombardment of air ions are greater there. Both of these factors played a crucial role in creating the “electronic wind” and shock shocks at a straight surface and in the “wrong” direction of rotation of the frame!

Of course, as can be seen from the above explanation, there was no violation of Coulomb’s law!

Faciant meliora potentes.

1 XI 2024