Reply to comment on “variational formulation for the equilibrium condition of a conducting fluid in an electric field”

In this comment we respond to the several criticisms of the paper by Sujatha et al. raised by Kingham and Bell. In particular, we demonstrate that, contrary to their assertion, Taylor's solution for the electrostatic fields can never satisfy the boundary conditions for the actual experimental configurations involving field emission liquid metal ion sources and other experiments on electrostatically stressed conducting fluids. It is further argued that a careful analysis of Taylor's experimental procedure and observations suggests that although the observed static structures have a macroscopic axial-symmetry they have not the idealized conical shapes of prescribed angle. Furthermore, the formation of the Taylor cone structure is shown to be inconsistent with the principle of energy minimization.It is concluded that none of the criticism raised by Kingham and Bell invalidate any of the analysis or conclusions presented in the paper by Sujatha et al.This work has been supported in part by the Division of Materials Research, National Science Foundation, Grant No. DMR-81008829