Re: RQ gap spacing theory question

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

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <Parpp807-at-aol-dot-com>

In a message dated 12/4/01 8:20:25 PM Central Standard Time, tesla-at-pupman-dot-com 
writes:

>  Regardless of the physics of how the arc gets from A to Z, the arc must
>  > overcome the
>  > distance between A and Z. That distance is each gap summed additively.

Hi All,

I may have set off this spark when I wrote that the gap size of a multiple 
gap is the total of the individual gaps.

Imagine five inches of gap space, A-Z, holding off a very intense E field. 
Then place a tightly fitting block of copper into the five inch gap thus 
causing a current to flow and dropping the E field to zero V / meter. The 
copper is a short circuit to the E field.
No matter how many times you divide the copper block into smaller sections to
make a multigap, there is no field across the copper. the voltage across each 
piece of copper is zero. The copper has lots of mhos but no
ohms. But the field still exists between A-Z and altho the multigap spacing 
need not be equal, at some total spacing the gap will fire and the E field 
drops to zero. As Malcolm previously wrote, there may be a direction to the 
flow of charge  
but the breakdown is instantaneous.

I'm ready for an education.  :-))

Happy day,
Ralph Zekelman