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Re: Corona and Sphere - Puzzle -addition
-----Original Message-----
From: Tesla List <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Date: Friday, October 29, 1999 6:45 AM
Subject: Re: Corona and Sphere - Puzzle -addition
>Original Poster: "Malcolm Watts" <malcolm.watts-at-wnp.ac.nz>
>
>Hi Jim,
>
>> Original Poster: "Jim Lux" <jimlux-at-jpl.nasa.gov>
>>
>Does that really address the problem posed by the unmasked
>portion of the terminal not breaking out despite being at a high
>enough voltage to do so?
>
I think so.. Once the leader starts to form, the E field is highly non
uniform, especially as the charge starts to move away from the "back side"
towards the leader. So, by this time, the unmasked side may not be at a
high enough E field magnitude to break down the air. The leader growth
process operates on a time scale of microseconds or less (it goes in little
jumps), so the propagation delay from one side of the terminal to the other
is significant.