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Re: insulators, resonance, etc

> Electrical energy conducted thru the earth dissipates 
> rapidly.  Sea water is not bad.  Pure water/fresh water is lossy.  
> Resistance of "soil" varies all over the lot.  (pun.  ha.)  Its relatively 
> easy to	measure the resistance of any patch of soil.

Studies and theories of earth resonances and lightning model the earth 
as a large, negatively charged, perfectly conducting sphere or surface 
covered by a thin dielectric layer (the atmosphere up to about 30 mi.), 
followed by another conducting layer (the ionosphere); essentially a 
giant capacitor (btw - the earth's "fair weather" field is on the order of 
100V/m, during a thunderstorm this rises to  10kV/m or more).   The 
"resistance" of any particular cubic meter of soil doesn't play much  of 
a role in the earth resonances that Tesla envisioned (that incidentally 
have been experimentally demonstrated - Schuman resonances I 
think? - by showing that the the atmosphere can be used as a lossless 
waveguide).

As for the electrical energy dissipating, electricity can be viewed as a 
non-compressible fluid (remember Kirchoff's current law; what goes in 
has to come out). And if the earth does indeed act as a perfectly 
conducting insulated sphere, then what Tesla was talking about would 
seem to make sense.  Tesla even attempted to calculate the 
frequencies that the earth would resonate at just by using the above 
assumptions, and he came real close to the actual measured values.


Steven Roys (sroys-at-radiology.ab.umd.edu)