Re: Vortices off tops of discharges

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

Original poster: "Mark L. Fergerson by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <mfergerson1-at-cox-dot-net>


----- Original Message -----
From: "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
To: <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2002 4:33 AM
Subject: RE: Vortices off tops of discharges


> Original poster: "David Thomson by way of Terry Fritz
<twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <dave-at-volantis-dot-org>
>
> Hi Jim,
>
> >Are you saying that Dave's plasma vortex is definitely
due to rising heat?
>
> Richard can say what he wants about the vortex, there was
no heat of
> consequence in the vortex in my plasma ball.  At high
frequencies, the light
> is cold.  Tesla recorded a similar observation in his
carbon button lamp.
> It was a different arrangement, but similar principle.

  Hmmm. The glass envelope may have stayed cold to the
touch, but remember that tells you nothing about the heat
distribution _within_ the globe. It's very likely there are
flows induced in the gas as a result of some of it being
heated, and the rest not. Gotta eliminate the "known"
(buoyancy effects) before chasing the "unknown" (the
T-word).

  The globe _does_ get warm after running it a while, right?
It's converting some RF energy to light, after all.

> I plan to get some "carborundum" (silicon carbide -
commonly used as an
> abrasive and rock tumbling medium) and make a carbon
button lamp.  I've been
> working a lot with Envirotex Lite resin lately, and it
seems this would be a
> good medium to set the carborundum and aluminum post in.
Tesla bonded his
> materials with tar and then put the assembly in a partial
vacuum.  I'm
> guessing that if instead of a vacuum, I simply pour a lot
of resin around
> the button, that light would glow within the resin.  Are
there any plastics
> experts here who would know if this would work?

  Not a plastics expert, but from my reading of _Inventions,
Research, and Writings_ the effects Tesla noted were due to
the few air molecules remaining in the vacuum being slammed
into the button under the influence of the rapidly changing
high voltage. If the button is immersed in a polar
dielectric (has free dipoles, capable of being polarized),
the molecules comprising it will be rapidly heated to the
point of combustion/melting/other disaster. Recall all the
trouble Tesla had avoiding generating heat from the various
dielectrics (oils, waxes) he used to immerse coils and caps,
etc. I'd recommend against it. In fact, I'd go so far as to
say Tesla wouldn't have even tried it if he'd had modern
resins available; he abandoned solid dielectrics early on
because they don't "heal" after a discharge. You just might
have to get vacuum-friendly to do carborundum-button work.

  There was a long discussion about which common plastics
and casting resins are polar during the infamous "electret"
thread here. It's probably available on the Pupman archives,
but I wouldn't know where to look specifically.

  Elsewhere you mention you saw no differences worth
mentioning while running the system with the plane of the
windings vertical. This seems reasonable. I'd have expected
the vortices (assuming you had the globe in place) to remain
oriented as they were the other way; the enclosed gas
vortices should still be swirling axis-vertical because the
gas is under the influence of gravity with resultant
buoyancy differential for hot and cold gas. Why you get
layered (that's not the term you used, but I can't recall
it) vortices is beyond me. If it's due to local
irregularities in the instantaneous E-field, that might
explain it. Do they look similar with different runs of the
same coil, but different (number of layers, spacing, etc)
with different coils (running at different frequencies)? If
so, it may be an indirect indication of the frequency of the
coil!

  Again, recall the difficulties Tesla had characterizing
the many kinds of discharge he saw in glass vessels
evacuated to various degrees. And he didn't even have the
gases we know of (Ar, Xe, Ne, etc) to play with, just air.

  How about turning the entire coil assembly (pri + sec)
upside-down leaving the globe on top? Do you still get the
same vortex effects? Any difference in
orientation/intensity? Have you placed the globe _under_ the
coil? I'd expect the vortex orientation and intensity to
remain consistent with gravitational influence and power
applied.

  What happens when you place the globe in the plane of the
coil to the side in either orientation? I'd expect the
vortices (if any) to be very weak since the available field
intensity should be less.

  Mark L. Fergerson