# Driving force of an electron on earth

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-force-of-an-electron-on-earth/956004>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 13, 2021, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-force-of-an-electron-on-earth/956004 "2021-12-13T19:56:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 7

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**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\
**Post date:** [December 14, 2021, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-force-of-an-electron-on-earth/956004/7 "2021-12-14T06:16:13Z")

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> [@Francis\_Vaughan](#):
>
> With a bit of care you can take a free electron and drive it to a near stationary state in an optical trap. That is perhaps as close as one can get to a still electron.

You might be able to collect electrons in a mason jar. From a post I made several years ago:

> [@Electrons that power plants send out. Where do they come from](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electrons-that-power-plants-send-out-where-do-they-come-from/660569/39):
>
> Electrons are now viewed as something like little fuzzballs rather then solid marbles. If you don’t keep them tightly contained, they tend to puff up. I dropped a mason jar full of electrons once, and it was a mess! They all swelled up to the size of tennis balls (still fuzzy) and covered the entire floor of the lab up to the height of the windows. The windows blew out, and they spilled out into the courtyard and burned the lawn, before they eventually floated up into the air and drifted off.

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