Talk:Breakdown voltage

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(preview) The voltage minimum that makes a insulator react as a conductor

(defn.) Is a parameter of a insulator that defines the Minimum voltage difference that can be applied across the material before the insulator collapses and conducts.

I changed minimum to maximum

(preview) The voltage minimum that makes a insulator react as a conductor

(defn.) Is a parameter of a insulator that defines the maximum voltage difference that can be applied across the material before the insulator collapses and conducts

you can see minimum and maximum can both be used to correctly describe breakdown voltage in different ways, but they were mixed up in one spot. Pogostix July 31, 2005

"In vacuum, this breakdown potential may decrease to an extent that two uninsulated surfaces with different potentials might induce the electrical breakdown of the surrounding gas." Clarification as to what gas there is in or near a "vacuum" would be nice. --Fyedernoggersnodden (talk) 13:32, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Sure would. Maybe if you have enough volts you can ionize the quantum flux, or maybe the collective solar winds provide enough atoms to consider outer space a disperse gas rather than a vacuum, but without some generalized idea as to what rough values these constants might take, having a precise formula for calculating such voltages is just useless. --Polymath69 (talk) 12:14, 17 March 2008 (UTC)