Daily Physicist

Today is the birthday of

• Christopher Clavius (1538-1612).

Today’s Problem

With dry air having a dielecric strength of \(3\times 10^6\) V/m what potential are we at when we walk across a room and produce a spark with our hand at \(2\) mm from a grounded light switch?

Answer

\[3\times 10^6\,\text{V/m}\left(2\times 10^{-3}\,\text{m}\right)=6\,\text{kV}\]