andyupnorth

So if we stop thinking about the term "dielectric", is there a way for a material to not get attracted to neither the +ve or -ve plates of an electrostatic field source, yet this material attenuates an electric field going through it?

Thanks. You've been most helpful. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedSorry for beating the subject to death, but... So a non-polar dielectric like pressurized SF6 (dielectric constant ~7) cannot get polarized, right?

So is it the surface charge on the dielectric that pulls or pushes the dielectric in a non-uniform field? If so, can't we just ground the dielectric? (assuming part of it is far away from the electric field) Besides, were does the surface charge come from anyway?

Granpa, I strangely got the exact opposite answer from a different forum: --> http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=93508 Or are you guys actually agreeing but talking about two different aspects? Very confusing! P.s. How do we decide which forum to battle this out in?

Thanks for the quick reply. So a non-polar or polar material has nothing to do with attraction or repulsion from the field source? And what about charges getting accumulated on the surface of the dielectric from the source (which, say, is a few centimeters away across air)? Won't that charge buildup cause repulsion from the source?

I'm searching for a dielectric material that does not get attracted to the +ve or -ve plates of an electric field. Could someone correct me if this is wrong, but does a non-polar dielectric (e.g. pressurized SF6) get attracted to a positive or negative plate? Or does it simply attenuate the electric field without having a force induced in it since it does not get polarized? Furthermore, IF a non-polar dielectric is not attracted to an electric field source, THEN what non-polar material/gas out there has the highest dielectric constant (i.e. relative static permittivity)?

IMHO, We are a black box (like a mathematical function). We're born with predispositions (and even life experiences begin before birth). If you knew all the intricate details about all its inputs, and you knew all the intricate details of how the black box behaves at any point in time, you could 'calculate' its output. However, the behavior of that black box changes with previous inputted data, and even the lack of data or repeated data changes its behavior. So technically, if we knew everything, there is no free will. However, since we will certainly never know all the intricate details of every input that has ever entered the black box, and how these inputs combine with the black box's predispositions, it's more practical to say that we do have free will.