Good opportunity to share this life hack: I used to end up with a mess almost every time I used my coffee grinder, much like the picture in the article. Eventually I learned that this only happens with very dry beans. Adding a few tiny drops of water before grinding is enough to get rid of it pretty much completely. Since making coffee already involves water it’s as easy as dipping a finger and then running it through the beans.
No mention of lightening!
The idea that the triboelectric series is more guidelines than rules was interesting, but the metal-insulator distinction seems a bit off. Is there a triboelectric effect between two conductors? How? Why wouldn't the distribution of electrons even out in a pair of conductors, or do they mean non conducting metals?
And I imagine someone has looked at triboelectric effects between crystals of varying materials - does anyone know?
Good opportunity to share this life hack: I used to end up with a mess almost every time I used my coffee grinder, much like the picture in the article. Eventually I learned that this only happens with very dry beans. Adding a few tiny drops of water before grinding is enough to get rid of it pretty much completely. Since making coffee already involves water it’s as easy as dipping a finger and then running it through the beans.
The wikipedia page on the triboelectric effect is particularly good, and has a hilarious cat picture.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triboelectric_effect
No mention of lightening! The idea that the triboelectric series is more guidelines than rules was interesting, but the metal-insulator distinction seems a bit off. Is there a triboelectric effect between two conductors? How? Why wouldn't the distribution of electrons even out in a pair of conductors, or do they mean non conducting metals? And I imagine someone has looked at triboelectric effects between crystals of varying materials - does anyone know?
>Based on our theory, the Seebeck coefficient is the fundamental source of the mysteriousness of triboelectricity.
https://journals.aps.org/prresearch/abstract/10.1103/PhysRev...
Put 2 conductors with different Seebecks in contact and you get a... thermocouple (at least?)
> Two experiments using the same sets of materials may yield two distinct orderings of the materials.
A quantum static effect?