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452.03
If we stretch an initially flat rubber sheet around
a sphere, the outer spherical
surface is stretched further than the inside spherical
surface of the same rubber sheet
simply because circumference increases with radial increase,
and the more tensed side of
the sheet has its atoms pulled into closerradial proximity
to one another. Electromagnetic
energy follows the most highly tensioned, ergo the most
atomically dense, metallic element
regions, wherefore it always follows great-circle patterns
on the convex surface of metallic
spheres. Large copper-shelled spheres called Van De
Graaff electrostatic generators are
employed as electrical charge accumulators. As much
as two million volts may be
accumulated on one sphere's surface, ultimately to be
discharged in a lightninglike leap-
across to a near neighbor copper sphere. While a small
fraction of this voltage might
electrocute humans, people may walk around inside such
high-voltage-charged spheres
with impunity because the electric energy will never
follow the concave surface paths but
only the outer convex great-circle paths for, by kinetic
inherency, they will always follow
the great-circle paths of greatest radius.
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