Re: fire conducts electricity?

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

Original poster: "Jolyon Vater Cox by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <jolyon-at-vatercox.freeserve.co.uk>

Yes, fire conducts electricity -the chemical reaction of combustion produces
ions and these are accelerated by the electric field of your Tesla coil.

Michael Faraday knew as much when researching into the identity of "common"
and "voltaic" electricity -ie. electricity from electrostatic machines and
electricity from chemical batteries respectively.
Apparently platinum wires were suspended above a burner flame on insulating
glass rods and the resulting current decomposed potassium iodide solution.

Jolyon.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
To: <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Sent: Friday, August 16, 2002 6:31 PM
Subject: fire conducts electricity?


> Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>"
<Beans45601-at-aol-dot-com>
>
> Okay, I was trying to light my blow torch (not like the blow torch that
had the
> tank of oxygen and take of fuel, just a little handheld one. Not sure if
those
> are called blow torches also...) a couple of days ago. Well, I didn't want
to
> use a match, they smell, and I didn't have a lighter. So, I decided to use
my
> tesla coil (I am sure it was not the smartest thing to do). Anyway, I
stood on
> a big plastic bucket to get my self off the ground, then turned on the gas
and
> held it up to the tesla coil. Well, it light (big suprise) and I noticed
> something weird, the sparks from my tesla coil were jumping to the fire,
not to
> the tip of the blow torch, but the fire. And I was thoroughly amazed!
Okay,
> what is happening here? does fire really conduct electricity, or is it
> something else I didn't think about?
>
> Thanks
> Adam
>
>
>