Static Electricity ---What shapes would collect it best? Would a pyramid be better than a sphere or cylinder?

Question

Can it be used? What about St. Elmo's Fire? Can you

suggest experiments? How about other information?

Thank you for your answers

Answer 1

I would think (and your research will confirm this) that spheres will hold the most static electricity. A pointy shape like a pyramid has only 4 or 5 corners that are far away from each other, whereas a sphere has an infinite number of places that are al equally far apart from each other. Remember, this is important because a static charge buildup of one type of charge (+ or -) will mean that there is repulsion, and the charge will try to separate as far as possible. With a pyramid, this means only 4 or 5 corners (depending on what type of pyramid you're talking about) get highly charged, whereas with a sphere the whole surface has the ability to become highly charged. So: pointy objects have areas of higher concentration of charge (the corners), but spherical objects can hold charge equally on their surface, and thus have the potential to hold "more" charge without a discharge like in a lightning storm.

St. Elmo's Fire would occur mostly with pointy objects, because as I mentioned before the charge concentrates at the corners of the object.

Answer 2

Long, thin metal poles ending with sharp points will attract the most electricity.

I do not recommend walking around with one of these in a thunderstorm.