Re: Spark length records- was Magnifiers vs normal TCs

[FutureT-at-aol-dot-com (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>)]

In a message dated 10/1/00 8:47:30 PM Pacific Daylight Time, tesla-at-pupman-dot-com 
writes:

> Margaret wrote that but when a number of people went digging...  Oops!  No
>  supporting data could be found!!  Tesla at times "speculated' about arc
>  length but the real documented length he achieved is 32 feet.  When one
>  goes digging into the times of experimentation and power available to him,
>  He simply didn't have the equipment needed to go much further than 32 feet.
>   The New York project did have this power but was never operated.  So,
>  sorry, but those 130, 300, 10 mile arcs are all fantasy...  In the "free
>  energy days" of the 80's, all kinds of claims were made of what Tesla did.
>  However, we now know from actual documentation that what he really did was
>  super great, but within reason for what he had available to him. 

David, all,

Another interesting point is that Tesla sometimes measured his
spark lengths by considering all the twists and turns that the arc
made while flowing though the air, and also counted the total
arc distance from one side of the head of sparks to the opposite
side, etc.  There was no standard way to define an arc length in
those days for TC's, so various ways of looking at the issue were
considered and used.  Sometimes it's an advantage to quote a
higher spark length figure for capturing the backing of potential
financers, to dazzle the public, etc.

John Freau