In an electric field, any liquid not carrying an electric current develops a specific bulk pressure powered by thermal motion, like gas pressure:
"However, in experiments in which a capacitor is submerged in a dielectric liquid the force per unit area exerted by one plate on another is observed to decrease...This apparent paradox can be explained by taking into account the DIFFERENCE IN LIQUID
PRESSURE in the field filled space between the plates and the field free region outside the capacitor."
http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/jk1/lectures/node46.html
Tai Chow, Introduction to Electromagnetic Theory: A Modern Perspective, p. 267: "The strictly electric forces between charges on the conductors are not influenced by the presence of the dielectric medium. The medium is polarized, however, and the
interaction of the electric field with the polarized medium results in an INCREASED FLUID PRESSURE ON THE CONDUCTORS that reduces the net forces acting on them."
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-To-Electromagnetic-Theory-Perspective/dp/0763738271
Wolfgang K. H. Panofsky, Melba Phillips, Classical Electricity and Magnetism, pp.115-116: "Thus the decrease in force that is experienced between two charges when they are immersed in a dielectric liquid can be understood only by considering the effect
of the PRESSURE OF THE LIQUID ON THE CHARGES themselves."
http://www.amazon.com/Classical-Electricity-Magnetism-Second-Physics/dp/0486439240?tag=viglink21401-20
The specific bulk pressure is able to generate vigorous jets and flows that can do mechanical work (e.g. by rotating waterwheels), at the expense of ambient heat and in violation of the second law of thermodynamics.
Pentcho Valev
https://twitter.com/pentcho_valev
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