A3_4 ‘Afraid of a Little Lightning?’: Mjolnir’s Capacitance

Abstract

Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir, appears to store the energy from lighting. By modelling Mjolnir as a parallel plate capacitor, with a hollow centre, we calculated that it has a capacitance of 2.1 ×10^−11 F. To store the energy of one lightning bolt, an electric field of 1.6 ×10^12 Vm−1 is created. This would ionise any air inside Mjolnir, and so a dielectric is needed to maintain the capacitor.