Re: Ball lightning ?

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Malcolm Watts by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <m.j.watts-at-massey.ac.nz>

Hi Randy and interested aspiring BL coilers,
                                             Inspired by the Corums 
apparent success in producing BL, I decided to have a go. I opted for 
recipe #2 (charcoal on top of terminal - saved the complications of a 
second secondary etc.). Furthermore, I emailed Ken Corum to verify 
the operating power level and conditions under which it was supposed 
to be achieved and was pleasantly surprised to discover the system I 
proposed to use fitted the bill. The result was a disappointing 
occasional shower of yellow sparks. When somebody actually succeeds, 
please let us all know.

Regards,
malcolm

On 10 Jan 2002, at 22:42, Tesla list wrote:

> Original poster: "Randy by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>"
<randy-at-gte-dot-net>
> 
> OK, I'm gonna just spill my guts here. If you, dear reader, win the
> Nobel Prize for Physics, kindly send me half of the money, and
> mention me if you get the chance. I had intended to experiment
> and prove or disprove the theory for myself, but it's not going to
> happen any time soon, and I could get hit by a bus in the
> meanwhile, so, here goes: <still on-topic, Terry :) >
> 
> From: http://www.ilpi-dot-com/msds/ref/activatedcharcoal.html
> 
> "A single gram of such material can have 400 to 1,200 square meters of 
> surface area, 98% of it internal! "
> 
> They're talking about charcoal... carbon to be specific. Carbon being an 
> integral part of the
> "sooty smoke" needed to make MW oven plasmoids, which "may" be akin to ball 
> lightning.
> 
> It is not hard for me to believe that a lightning stroke might occasionally 
> liberate a fresh
> batch of, say, a gram of carbon to the atmosphere. Probably Malcolm, or 
> somebody, can
> calculate the capacitance of 1200 M^2 of carbon vs. the atmosphere,
> ....and its resistance, and just boil it down
> to a simple RC time constant...ummm... I can imagine *several* grams of 
> fresh carbon
> being aerosolized and electrically charged by a strike;
> ....methinks that a few thousand square yards of
> charged surface area, via a poor conductor, COULD discharge a'la ball 
> lightning, in an R/C
> kinda way, for a humanly-comprehendable several seconds.
> Yes, I realize that particles of a similar charge are going to busily be 
> trying to get away
> from each other... but there may be EM fields and such that my puny mind 
> has not
> allowed for, thus far.
> 
> Disclaimer: I "may be" "full of it"..... but just go and watch a summertime 
> lightning storm here
> in FL, and watch the clouds.... if it's not a giant R/C relaxation 
> oscillator....you're not watching
> closely enough, as one cloud and the next, and the next fire off....I was 
> kinda surprised when
> the Shuttle astronauts "discovered" that lightning storms have an effect on 
> one another.....I
> can imagine such stuff happening on a very small scale....
> 
> Randy
> 
> 
> 
> At 09:08 PM 1/6/02 -0700, you wrote:
> >Original poster: "Randy by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" 
> ><randy-at-gte-dot-net>
> >
> >IIRC dwp, your are correct. There was NO coil involved, just whopping
> >big raw DC. No idea who the person was.
> >
> >Regards,
> >Randy
> >
> >At 04:55 PM 1/6/02 -0700, you wrote:
> > >   I think that was Robert Golka.  Brief clip in another
> > >         show.  NOT using the big coil.
> 
> 
> 
> 
>