Can static electricity be generated in a vacuum?

Answer 1

I have never read of anyone trying to "generate" static electricity in a vacuum. However, there are letters from Nikola Tesla to J J Thompson in the "electrical experimenter" magazine available online. Tesla talks about discharges in a vacuum like those you see in plasma balls etc.... He mentions using a wimshurst machine which is simply a static generator to create plasma in a vacuum tube.... he places the standard spark gap of the wimshurst "inside" a vacuum chamber to observe the effects.

Static electricity can not necesarrily "stay" static within a vacuum. The big thing about the chamber is that its atmosphere is much less than that of normal air... so what would result as static build up in ambient pressures would result as a "plasma" type discharge in a vacuum... the big thing is that there is much less resistance inside a vacuum.

But, if you have ever played with a plasma ball you know that there is a static build up on the outisde of the ball due to the smell of ozone (creation of negative ions)... also foil and other conductors can draw arcs off one another while near the surface of the plasma ball... the electricity acts like static electricity but it doesnt "go away" like standard statics... this is due to a capacitive reaction in the air around the plasma ball and the fact that the thing is being continuosly powered... you can collect static charge from a television screen in a similar way but a large discharge to a ground will sometimes make the screen go blank....

I guess the main point would be since magnetism and electromagnetism are essentially the same things at their core. The big question becomes, "would whats on the inside effect things on the outside" and vice versa... the answer would have to be yes... saying no to that would be essentially the same thing as saying if i put a piece of glass in between a piece of metal and a strong magnet it wont be attracted because the glass would block it...

This is where it gets into the un researched realm..... there are.... well, WERE, many interesting scientists that did research on the electrical effects inside a vacuum chamber... the one thing nobody has ever done is re-create teslas experiment where he took his most powerful high frequency coil and powered a single light bulb with it... he describes it in his own words and it did NOT burn out blow up or fail in any way.... it apparently ended up becoming his basis for his wardenclyffe tower... you will notice in the old photos of wardenclyffe that the top of the tower is covered with "bulbs" and im pretty sure he wasnt just making "light" with those bulbs...