The gripe I have though is that it is incredibly hard (if not impossible) to create a dense powerful e-field without it arcing over.
To be powerful you need an incredibly high voltage, to be dense you need the positive (holes, as they say) and negative charges to be close to each other.
If you could get 5MV between two plates that are a foot apart, that e-field would be insane an probably could do all manner of sci-fi. But it would flash over and equalize in a picosecond. Even if you had some kind of god tier power supply supply that could support a constant 5MV, you would just end up with a dense wad of plasma vaporizing everything.
Dunno. The breakdown voltage of vacuum is enormous. There might be several unknown parameters at play here which would increase the breakdown voltage of the air.
It might be but an urban legend, but the phenomenon sounds way too fun to not look into it (or to stop spreading it should it turn out as false, kinda like Santa)
To be powerful you need an incredibly high voltage, to be dense you need the positive (holes, as they say) and negative charges to be close to each other.
If you could get 5MV between two plates that are a foot apart, that e-field would be insane an probably could do all manner of sci-fi. But it would flash over and equalize in a picosecond. Even if you had some kind of god tier power supply supply that could support a constant 5MV, you would just end up with a dense wad of plasma vaporizing everything.