Re: Anyone ever successful with Ball Lightning generation here . . . .

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

Original poster: "Gary Peterson by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <glpeterson-at-tfcbooks-dot-com>

> Just wondering if anyone on this group has (or knows) anyone who has
> successfully reproduced Tesla's and Corum's experiments regarding the
> generation of ball lightning.  If so, I'd be interested in learning about
> the theory regarding this.

You've probably read the following account by J.J. O'Neil:

"Tesla became familiar with the destructive characteristics of fireballs in
his [frequency division multiplexing] experiments at Colorado Springs in
1899. . . . He studied the process by which they were produced, not because
he wanted to produce them but in order to eliminate the conditions in which
they were created. . . .

"Parasitic oscillations, or circuits, within the main circuit were a source
of danger. . . . Points of resistance in the main circuits could result in
minor oscillating circuits between terminals or between two points of
resistance and these minor circuits would have a very much higher period of
oscillation than the main circuit and could be set into oscillation by the
main current of lower frequency.

"Even when the principle oscillating circuit was adjusted for the greatest
efficiency of operation by the diminution of all sources of losses the
fireballs continued to occur but these were due to stray high frequency
charges from random earth currents.

"From these experiences it became apparent that the fireballs resulted from
the interaction of two frequencies, a stray higher frequency wave imposed on
the lower frequency free oscillations of the main circuit.

"As the free oscillation of the main circuit builds up from the zero point
to the quarter wave length node it passes through various rates of change.
In a current of shorter wavelength the rates of change will be steeper. When
the two currents react on each other the resultant complex will contain a
wave in which there is an extremely steep rate of change, and for the
briefest instant currents may move at a tremendous rate, at the rate of
millions of horsepower.

"This condition acts as a trigger which may cause the total energy of the
powerful longer wave to be discharged in an infinitesimally small interval
of time and at a proportionally tremendously great rate of energy movement
which cannot confine itself to the metal circuit and is released into
surrounding space with inconceivable violence."

The entire text is at www.tfcbooks-dot-com/writings/prevent.htm.  The Corum
paper as it appeared in the TCBA News Vol. 8, #3 is at
http://home.dmv-dot-com/~tbastian/ball.htm.  The original paper was published in
the Russian physics journal Uspekhi, April 1990, pp. 47-58.

Golka tried the Corum circuit at Climax Mine in 1989 using the "Wheaties"
coil and a another smaller resonator both within a common welding-cable
primary.  I believe I saw a few tiny descrete points of light near the
larger coil's topload, but Bob thought I was hallucinating.  A fellow from
California by the name of Dave Parrish was there also.

Gary