Electrostatic Machines

June 25, 2007 6:31 PM

This fellow reads up on electricity generating machines in old books and then builds them.
posted by tellurian (14 comments total)

Wow! On preliminary perusal, I'd just say that this guy is amazing! This is really, really interesting. Great find, great post. There's so much here! The machines are beautiful. Want to own several.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:43 PM on June 25, 2007

There goes the summer.
posted by MapGuy at 6:48 PM on June 25, 2007

This is why I love MetaFilter!!!!!!!!!!
posted by caddis at 7:05 PM on June 25, 2007

<burns>Excelent</burns>.
posted by ArgentCorvid at 7:05 PM on June 25, 2007

Brazil, not Portugal.
posted by peacay at 7:10 PM on June 25, 2007

Thanks peacay, fixed.
posted by tellurian at 7:29 PM on June 25, 2007

"I do not understand electricity and I do not wish to have it explained to me." -- James Thurber
posted by neuron at 7:34 PM on June 25, 2007

wow, How neat. Science hobbyists rock.

About the builder, Dr. Antonio Carlos Moreirão de Queiroz is Associate Professor at COPPE, Electrical Engineering Program, and at the Electronic and Computer Engineering Department of the Polytechnic School, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ).

His Links page and a few intriguing tangents, such as The Turn Of The Century Electrotherapy Museum, Lateral Science and Instruments for Natural Philosophy.
posted by nickyskye at 7:34 PM on June 25, 2007 [2 favorites]

And on the subject of Electrotherapy...

Dr. Sanden's Electric Belt !
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:50 PM on June 25, 2007

And the Giant Power Heidelberg Electric Belt !
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:52 PM on June 25, 2007

This fellow will soon be found dead with small circular burn marks on his fingers and the bottoms of his feet.
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:01 PM on June 25, 2007

There was a great Midsomer Murders episode with one of these, whose name I can't find online: The Electric Vendetta. It doesn't actually play a part in the story but it's a big clue.
posted by dhartung at 9:08 PM on June 25, 2007

[this is good]
Thanks, tellurian.
posted by GrammarMoses at 3:38 AM on June 26, 2007

Electricity can be fun. In college one of my physics professors, an eccentric old Frenchman, loved to put on demonstrations during lecture. Perhaps his most impressive was charging a capacitor the size of a car battery with a Van de Graaff generator, turning out the lights and then discharging it with a pitchfork having something like a 15 to 20 foot long handle - BANG! It was like an M-80 going off in the lecture hall.
posted by caddis at 8:21 AM on June 29, 2007