Re: SIlly idea

["Ed Phillips" <evp-at-pacbell-dot-net> (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>)]

Tesla list wrote:
> 
> Original poster: "Thomas McGahee" <tom_mcgahee-at-sigmais-dot-com>
> 
> If you have two electrodes, one a flat plate, and the other
> a needle point, the electrons will discharge more readily from the
> needle to the plate than vice versa. Therefore there is a
> measureable "rectification" using this method.
> 
> Fr. Tom McGahee

	That is the same principle as the gaseous rectifiers so widely used in
"B-battery eliminators" in the early days of radio.  Typical tube was
the Raytheon BH.  Had one (actually two in parallel) pointed electrodes
inside a dome of metal (probably nickel) which served as the anode. 
Whole thing was filled with (helium) at a pressure of a few microns.

Ed