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Re: Neat Electricity Page



On Mon, 25 Sep 1995 tesla-at-grendel.objinc-dot-com wrote:

> Hey, I just found a neat HV electricity home page on Netscape.
> It's called the Theater of Electricity.

All right!  That's my old stomping ground, the Museum of Science in
Boston.  The east end of the museum houses Dr. VandeGraaff's monster
machine, in its final incarnation as a double-columned double sphere
generator.  Only one column houses the belts, the other one once held a
particle accelerator.  Also found there are the original Plasma Sphere
devices built by Bill Parker, the one who started the whole craze in the
'80s (He got the idea from an even earlier exhibit in the Explortorium
museum, called Argon Candle)

On a good, dry day the VDG sparks can go about 10 feet.  They are not 
continuous, they are about once per second, and sound like a 22 cal 
pistol shot.

When I worked there, I had my "mad science lab / junk room" up IN that
exhibit hall for awhile (not in the VDG, just in the hall.) It actually
was a big pain, since during the VDG show the lights would be turned off. 
And the ion cloud from the generator would cause soot and air pollution to
"plate out" and stick to all surfaces.  Sort of like the dirt on your CRT,
but on everything, even the undersides of tables! 


.....................uuuu / oo \ uuuu........,.............................
William Beaty  voice:206-781-3320   bbs:206-789-0775    cserv:71241,3623
EE/Programmer/Science exhibit designer        http://www.eskimo-dot-com/~billb/
Seattle, WA 98117  billb-at-eskimo-dot-com           SCIENCE HOBBYIST web page