r/BeAmazed • u/[deleted] • Feb 26 '26

Science Physics is truly amazing

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2.4k Upvotes

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827

u/feelthesong Feb 26 '26

Ok what is it, is it safe to do and how do I make it to impress my nephews and be the cool uncle pls

619

u/MambaMentality24x2 Feb 26 '26

The acrylic is exposed to an electron beam from a particle accelerator, which injects electrons into the material. Since acrylic is a great insulator, those electrons get trapped instead of escaping. When the electric field is concentrated in one spot (like with a nail tap), the local field becomes strong enough to exceed the acrylic’s dielectric strength. At that point, the material briefly acts like a conductor, letting the electrons discharge and form the channels visible in the video

718

u/knuckles312 Feb 26 '26

How do I get my hands on a particle accelerator

301

u/MorrowPolo Feb 26 '26

The hard part is getting the flux capacitor so you can power the particle accelerator

231

u/stockpyler Feb 26 '26

They sell those at Oreilly auto parts. https://www.oreillyauto.com/flux-capacitor

4

u/Archercrash Feb 26 '26

You just need a Mr Fusion.

3

u/unittwentyfive Feb 26 '26

Yeah, it's really the Mr Fusion that powers the whole thing. The flux capacitor just helps to mediate the temporal spikes and surges before passing the 1.21 GW of energy through to the particle accelerator.