I distinctly remember seeing “no cellphone” signs near petrol pumps, but at some point they disappeared. What happened?
In: Technology
Myth busters IIRC did an episode on this.
They did a number of tests and couldn’t get a cellphone to ignite gas fumes no matter the vapor concentration or how many phones they used. I recall they even had a trailer full of open gas containers with a dozen phones in that they rang and couldn’t get it to ignite.
Then they did a test with “shell suits” – a popular clothing material in the early 90’s at around the same time as cellphones started to come into vaguely common use. These were made entirely out of synthetic fibers, and formed loose fitting clothes that rustle – so were very prone to static sparks. Agitating a sample of these types of clothes when there was a lot of gas vapor ignited it quite easily.
Their hypothesis was that clothing styles and materials in popular use at the time cellphones started to become common started a few fires by sparking, but the fires were blamed on the new phone technology, because nobody expected clothing to start fires but did expect the new electric gadgets to be able to.
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