RE: (Fwd) RE: Longitudinal Waves

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

Original poster: "David Thomson by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <dave-at-volantis-dot-org>

Hi Malcolm,

>I suspect signal was being coupled to the output stage through the speaker
leads.

I'm not experienced in this area of electronics and will accept your
explanation.  All I can say for certain is that I no longer have sound for
my computer :-(

>Sounds like it was radiating like crazy. I visited the website to have a
look. How wide is the main gap set?

The gap is set between 1/16" and 1/8".  I tried a 3/16" gap on my 29" coil
and it arced the outer windings.  I had to take off 1.75" width of coil wire
in order to use the coil again.

>There is a lot of power being lost, probably in somewhat broadband
radiation. I suppose the key question is: Is there anything about the
results that cannot be accounted for by more conventional e.m. theory? What
*proof* do you have that you are producing longitudinal waves? What
characteristics should one look for?

To begin with, I'm not trying to replace conventional EM theory.  I'm
describing something in addition to it, for the most part.  Even if my
theory becomes fully accepted, conventional EM theory will still apply and
be integrated.

There is no doubt there is some radiation loss.  It is not a very well tuned
system for any particular wavelength or wave type.  My experiments last
night proved this to me.  To put a heavy isotropic capacitance on the
terminal I had a 32" diameter circle cut out of 1/4" Plexiglas with a 1/4"
hole in the center.  Through this hole I ran the end of a long insulated
stranded wire and stripped the last 10".  I spread the 10" of stranded wire
radially, spread some acrylic resin over the wire strands and circle area,
covered it with aluminum foil, squeegeed the air out, and then covered the
top with more acrylic resin.  When connecting the insulated wire to the coil
terminal I wrap the connection with high voltage putty.  The way it is right
now, it's like putting a bottle on the end of an air hose.  Now I'm going to
design an ion valve, somehow, that will allow the ions to escape at a
controlled rate.  If I am producing longitudinal waves, the electrostatic
"bottle" will resonate when the ions flowing across the input wire create
pressure waves resonant with the bottle's frequency.  It would be like
blowing across a glass jug to make it resonate.  In effect I'm creating a
Helmholtz resonator and I would expect the same laws to apply.

If you have ideas for creating an adjustable ion valve, I'm listening.

Anyway, I put the electrostatic bottle on the terminal of my wye coil
(trifilar wound) flat spiral secondary.  Even with 1/4" of Plexiglas plus
the plastic paper on both sides of the Plexiglas, plus a 1/4" of hot glue,
that's about a 1/2" of dielectric, I was still getting an arc through all of
that material between the primary and secondary.  This, in itself, is
indicative of longitudinal waves.  Had the energy been RF, there would have
been sparks of any length breaking out of the terminal at its weakest
points.

Just the fact that the voltage is mostly centered around the outer windings
of a flat spiral coil tells us that the terminal will be more inclined to
produce longitudinal waves, more so than RF waves.  With little voltage at
the terminal, there must be few RF waves radiating from the system.

>> Longitudinal waves do not propagate in the same manner as transverse
waves.
>> Transverse waves are voltage waves.  There are two voltage waves in every
>> transverse wave, each of opposite polarity from the other.  If left to
>> themselves, these waves will eventually attract each other and damp
>> themselves out.  And even when the two waves cancel out, the longitudinal
>> component of the wave is still there.

>Forgive me for saying so but that sounds a bit dubious to me. I've never
heard of waves attracting each other. And what happens to the energy that
was in them following cancellation?

I realize you may not have heard of this before.  And I don't want you to
accept this on faith.  Do some research on the true nature of a sine wave.
You will find that the sine wave being measured on an oscilloscope has a
greater positive component than it does a negative component.  The
oscilloscope compensates for this unevenness by using artificial means.  An
oscilloscope only measures one of the voltage waves and to make it look good
to the engineer, the electronics have been modified to make it appear as
there were only one perfect wave.  After all, both waves are mirrors of each
other, but have opposite polarities, so for most electronics purposes one
average wave suits the engineer well.

What happens to the energy is what I have been trying so painstakingly to
get across.  There are two vectors in any wave.  There is the voltage vector
and there is the longitudinal vector.  The voltage vector is actually two
electrostatic charges traveling opposite to each other.  When the two
voltage vectors have cancelled each other out, the longitudinal vector
remains and suffers no loss until the wave is absorbed by another field or
mass.  Also, if I were more advanced in math, I would check to see if energy
being expended in canceling the voltage is not being transferred into the
longitudinal component.  Either the two waves cancel thus produce heat, or
they cancel by transferring the energy toward the longitudinal component of
the pulse wave.

BTW, the two opposing fields of voltage are just like the two opposing
gravity waves produced in a pulse wave on the surface of water.  If you drop
a stone into a pond, the stone acts as the sudden release of potential that
starts the wave.  To make the pond example look like your oscilloscope view,
we will take a plane perpendicular to the water surface that intersects the
vertex formed by the stone.  What the water surface outlines is a damped
wave and illustrates water pressure as opposed to the electrical pressure of
voltage.  Opposite to this visible water pressure wave is an invisible, but
real gravitational pressure wave relative to the mean surface of the pond.
The mass of the water under the positive portion of the wave is greater than
the mass of the water under the negative portion of the wave. The gravity
works more to pull against the wave's high pressure and works less at
pulling on the wave's low pressure and the two waves cancel each other.
Gravity therefore behaves as an "electrostatic" force that neutralizes water
pressure waves just as there is an electrostatic force that neutralizes
voltage pressure waves.

To further the analogy of the stone in the pond and an electric pulse, a
stone falling into the water not only creates a transverse pressure wave,
but it also displaces water longitudinally that generates a sound wave.  The
sound wave can still be heard by sensitive instruments even though the
surface wave has been damped.  To go the other way with the analogy of water
and electricity, the US Navy broadcasts sound waves through the ocean that
cause severe damage in aquatic animals but produce no corresponding
transverse waves on the surface.  In areas where longitudinal pulses are
generated by land based installations for communicating with submarines and
locating underground structures, there are no corresponding disturbances on
the radio receiver for the given frequency, but people complain about health
effects and noises that are perceived within the body.

Tesla coils are pulse generators.  We can design and tune these pulse
generators to produce pulses with high voltages, high frequencies, or low
voltages, high frequencies.  And the longitudinal component can be of high
current, high frequency, or low current, high frequency.  The longitudinal
component can also have a strong or weak magnetic component as well.  I can
see how the longitudinal component of the wave looks metaphysical to an
engineer, but it is there.  We accept that a photon has no mass and yet
carries energy across the Universe; this sounds metaphysical too, but we
incorporate it into our science anyway.  No matter how we slice it, though,
the longitudinal component is always a function of time; just as the speed
of light is.  We can design the Tesla coil with complete independence
between transverse and longitudinal components.  A lot of work has gone into
developing the transverse component of the pulse wave in Tesla coils.  Now
I'm going to look into the longitudinal component and see what I can find.

>A standard 1/4 wave resonator is such a chamber.

Yes, and it is usually designed to maximize the voltage at the terminal.  We
get so enthralled at those beautiful long sparks that we overlook the
longitudinal waves.  And for most people, this is great.  The sparks are
entertaining enough.

>I'm sure that winding a flat spiral can't be all that difficult, even with
rather fine wire ;) I'll sit back and listen to what other list members have
to say for awhile before deciding whether it will be worth the effort.

Thanks for your engaging discussion.  When I have to find words to express
my ideas, I come to understand by ideas much better.  Hopefully, even if you
still choose to disagree, you will at least understand what I'm trying to
convey.

Dave