Massimo 
If you take a Petri dish, castor oil and some ball bearings and put all in an electric field, you might happen to spot an interesting behavior: self-assembling wires who appear to be almost alive
[📹 Stanford Complexity Group]
panu@Rainmaker1973
Okay, so can somebody please explain the science behind this? I'm guessing it has something to do with the electricity finding the path of least resistance, kinda like how lightning strikes where it strikes, or something. By how/why is it able to _make_ the path for itself, as appears to be happening here?
Okay, so can somebody please explain the science behind this? I'm guessing it has something to do with the electricity finding the path of least resistance, kinda like how lightning strikes where it strikes, or something. By how/why is it able to _make_ the path for itself, as appears to be happening here?
Mx. Chara Aznable (they/them) of Pnictogen@shadowdancer @Rainmaker1973 the phenomenon is known as dielectrophoresis. particles able to move about a dielectric medium (here, the castor oil) which is subjected to a non-uniform electric field (here, supplied by the ring electrode at the edge of the dish and the point electrode in the center) acquire a dipole moment and are thus tugged about by electrostatic attraction towards regions of greater field strength (in this case, round the central electrode.)