Re: Ion Motors / Electrostatic Pendulum

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <Hollmike-at-aol-dot-com>

> 
>  Hi Mike, Ben, All, 
>        Since Lightning is a phenomenon of the troposphere BELOW the 
>  tropopause (below 50,000ft ~15-18 km) and since the ionosphere begins 
ABOVE 
>  the mesopause (above 260,000ft ~80-85 km) what is the transport mechanism 
> for 
>  the forty or so miles ~60-65 km) in between the two? 
>        (The existance of the ionosphere had not even been established until 
a 
> 
>  decade after Wardenclyffe was demolished; highly unlikely that Tesla was 
>  going to utilize it.) 
>  
>  Matt D.      
>  
    Tesla knew 'something' was allowing conduction in the upper atmosphere.  
Whether it was actually as high as the Ionosphere,   I don't know.    I don't 
think it matters whether or not a name had been given to it at the 
time.....As for the transport mechanism,  I don't know that either.  
Capacitive coupling?   Ionic conduction???
   My only goal with the previous letter is to see what ideas and thoughts 
might arise.  There are a lot of brilliant people on this list and I would 
expect that 'we' could  add significantly to the accumulated knowledge of 
mankind.  I certainly don't have the answers, but thought this might make for 
a good topic of discussion.  In my opinion, there has to be much more to this 
area of science than simply trying to make the longest streamers.  While they 
are certainly amusing to watch,  isn't it really just a waste of the energy 
put into the coil?   I do realize that there is still more to learn about 
Tesla coils, but can we not achieve something that would be of more 
scientific importance than the length of streamers?    This is what I was 
hoping to stir in you all as a topic of discussion.  Now, maybe I should don 
my asbestos long johns........ ::grins::
Mike