On Sat, Jan 25, 2003 at 01:45:29PM -0800, William Chops Westfield wrote:
>     you need ceramic/glass or plastic insulators. Whats
>     wood made of? carbon mostly, and carbon is a conductor,
>
> While your conclusion (don't poke wooden broomsticks at high-voltage things)
> is fine, the above statement is completely bogus:
>
> Carbon is a semiconductor, much like silicon.
>
> Plastic has about as much carbon as wood.  Glass is "mostly silicon" by
> the same logic.
>
> The fact that carbon might conduct has very little to do with whether carbon
> compounds (wood, or plastic, or carbon dioxide, or carbon tetrachloride)
> might conduct...

Your right. WRT wood, it isn't the carbon containing compounds that will be
conducting current, but the moisture in the wood. Even kiln dried wood will
contain a few percent water by weight.

Matthew

--
Matthew Miller
SVCC College Bound, Technology Coordinator

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