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Re: Just One Pop

Subject:      Re: Just One Pop
       Date:  Tue, 13 May 1997 22:35:18 -0700
       From:  Bert Hickman <bert.hickman-at-aquila-dot-com>
Organization: Stoneridge Engineering
         To:  Tesla List <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
 References: 
            1


Tesla List wrote:
> 
> Subject: Re: Just One Pop
>   Date:  Mon, 12 May 1997 21:45:06 -0500 (CDT)
>   From: rwall-at-ix-dot-netcom-dot-com (Richard Wayne Wall)
>     To: Tesla List <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
> 
> 5/12/97
> 
> RH wrote:
> 
> snip
> 
> >  The mystery still elludes me a bit, but I am sure it is some obvious
> >oversight.  If not, then what gives?  It amazes me that the voltage
> >recorded on a given sphere leaps instantly to a huge negative value
> >while the accumulated coulombic charge slowly rises to some positive
> >value.
> >
> >Puzzled still,
> >
> >Richard Hull, TCBOR
> 
> In brief recap of my electrostatic experiments last year, the same
> general coil configuration was use in continous mode with the small
> brass ball terminal at very low power.  An electrostatic charge was
> collected on a square Al target suspended by monofiliment nylon line
> within fairly close range of the TC.  The charge was collected by a
> mica cap and measured with an electrostatic VM. This charge build up
> had a slow rise also and at close range was up to 10 kV.  It was always
> positive.  The positive polarity on the cap was authenticated with
> digital and analog VMs.  Also, while in rubber soled shoes and holding
> the positive lead of a grounded digital VM during continous TC mode, a
> positive polarity voltage was produced.
> 
> My prior experimental results were essentially the opposite of your
> your prior findings. They do not negate or discredit your findings in
> the least.  Now my recent experiments confirm your original negative
> polarity findings.  All this serves to illustrate that polarity of TC
> induced electrostatic charge may be either positive or negative.  It's
> not important to have it only one way or the other now in order to
> establish this or that theory as to the mechanism of charge generation.
> 
> It's a matter of differing variables, particuraly spatial geometries
> and frequencies.  Commonly understood charge vectors play no part.


Richards and all,

It certainly sounds like at least two effects are at work. Near the
coil, the charge may be negative or positive dependent upon the distance
and the respecitve electron/ionic concentrations. An instantaneous
change at large distances sounds more like electrostatic induction
effects. But in the case of a Tesla Coil, why would this tend to be only
one polarity? 

A reason for a unipolar preference might lie in the different mobilities
of ions and electrons. Suppose that roughly equal numbers of positive
ions and electrons are initially created around the toroid during the
damped oscillations of a single "pop". Very shortly after their
creation, the greater mobility of electrons makes them diffuse more
rapidly than the positive ions... resulting in  a redistribution of
space charge that is positive close to the toroid, and negative as we
move away from the toroid (so-called ambipolar diffusion). 

The only problem with this scenario is that if the outer region of
charge were more negative, it should induce a positive swing in the
remote electrometer, not a negative one if only electrostatic induction
was at work. Nothing is ever simple, is it! 

-- Bert H --