Re: Ball Lightning

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

Original poster: "Michael H Nolley by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <nolleym-at-willamette.edu>



>         Yep.
>         Corums cite Faradays Natural History of a Candle.
>         They speculated that Tesla's use of rubber insulated wire
>         led to 'seeding' effects, which helped towards Ball Lightning.
>         The BL field is still pretty wide open...

    There is quite a lot of interesting information on the web about
ball-lightning
theories and experiments.  It seems that genuine ball lightning isn't as
much affected
by carbon seeding as by very specific magnetic and current conditions.
Paul Koloc has
done some pretty amazing research on ball-lightning-like plasmoids, and he uses
transmission line techniques and a very specific field shaping coil and
electrode to
produce egg-sized plasmoids.  His sites are at www.plasmak-dot-com and
www.prometheus-dot-net.
    There was also some research done by Japanese scientists who connected
microscopic
ball lightning phenomena to electrolysis using platinides as electrodes
(nickel, silver,
platinum, palladium, etc.)  Platinum was once used in a chemical
interrupter called the
Wenhelt interrupter--the book I read never specified how it worked.  I
speculate that in
high current electrolysis the "Wenhelt" effect causes high rise-time
current spikes
which could be responsible for the ball-lightning effect observed.  Sorry
for the long
off-topic post.  Anyone who is interested in this subject can e-mail me
with questions
or comments.
            --Mike