# 3M accidentally invents force field? Has anyone else heard this one? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 5, 2010, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3m-accidentally-invents-force-field-has-anyone-else-heard-this-one/527771 "2010-02-05T06:48:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![AlienVessels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ba8739/32.png) [@AlienVessels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlienVessels)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3m-accidentally-invents-force-field-has-anyone-else-heard-this-one/527771/21 "2011-10-16T09:34:18Z")
Kinda reminds me of the Xrays from Scotch Tape a few years ago. > **[Scotch Tape Unleashes X-Ray Power (Published 2008)](https://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/science/28xray.html)** > > In a tour de force of office supply physics, researchers have shown that it is possible to produce X-rays by simply unrolling Scotch tape. ---
**Author:** ![bigredp1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@bigredp1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bigredp1)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3m-accidentally-invents-force-field-has-anyone-else-heard-this-one/527771/22 "2013-06-05T21:26:50Z")
yes, this is true. i went to the American Museum of Science and Energy in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, a man that worked there that done science experiments for the guests was telling us of some unclassified information that they allowed him to share with the public, he told us that a 3m film factory had created one by accident, it was Late summer in South Carolina - in high humidity, 50K ft. rolls 20ft wide was being slit and transferred to multiple smaller spools. The set-up incorporated the spool, vertical stage , then a 20 ft span, then dropping to be split and re-spooled., they finally fixed the issue but before they did the government stepped in an evaluated the situation. ( THAT was around the 1970s, so imagine how far the technology has advanced) ---
**Author:** ![bigredp1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@bigredp1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bigredp1)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3m-accidentally-invents-force-field-has-anyone-else-heard-this-one/527771/23 "2013-06-05T21:31:19Z")
i found more info on this :This occurred in late summer in South Carolina, in extremely high humidity. Polypropelene (PP) film on 50K ft. rolls 20ft wide was being slit and transferred to multiple smaller spools. The film was taken off the main roll at high speed, flowed upwards 20ft to overhead rollers, passed horizontally 20ft and then downwards to the slitting device, where it was spooled onto shorter rolls. The whole operation formed a cubical shaped tent, with two walls and a ceiling approximately 20ft square. The spools ran at 1000ft/min, or about 10MPH. The PP film had been manufactured with dissimilar surface structure on opposing faces. Contact electrification can occur even in similar materials if the surface textures or micro-structures are significantly different. The generation of a large imbalance of electrical surface-charge during unspooling was therefor not unexpected, and is a common problem in this industry. “Static cling” in the megavolt range! On entering the factory floor and far from the equipment, Mr. Swenson’s 200KV/ft handheld electrometer was found to slam to full scale. When he attempted to walk through the corridor formed by the moving film, he was stopped about half way through by an “invisible wall.” He could lean all his weight forward but was unable to pass. He observed a fly get pulled into the charged, moving plastic, and speculates that the e-fields might have been strong enough to suck in birds! ---
**Author:** ![Astroboy14](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/df705f/32.png) [@Astroboy14](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Astroboy14)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3m-accidentally-invents-force-field-has-anyone-else-heard-this-one/527771/24 "2013-06-05T22:33:24Z")
All of which was in the OP. ---
**Author:** ![colander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e8c25b/32.png) [@colander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colander)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3m-accidentally-invents-force-field-has-anyone-else-heard-this-one/527771/25 "2013-06-06T07:16:08Z")
This is pretty neat. Apparently not very easy to monetize, but still, neat. ---
**Author:** ![blindboyard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blindboyard/32/2833_2.png) [@blindboyard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blindboyard)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3m-accidentally-invents-force-field-has-anyone-else-heard-this-one/527771/26 "2013-06-06T13:06:08Z")
Reminds me of the climactic final scene of Ulrich Haarburste’s “Novel of Roy Orbison in Cling-film”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3m-accidentally-invents-force-field-has-anyone-else-heard-this-one/527771.md?page=1)