Re: Ball Lightning - Easier than you think . . .

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

Original poster: "Charles Brush by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <cfbrush-at-interport-dot-net>

>Original poster: "David Speck by way of Terry Fritz 
><twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <dave-at-davidspeckmd-dot-org>
>
>OK, Dan,
>Now you've got our curiosity going!  Can you pick these guys' brains and
>get some rough sketches of a setup that would do this?
>Dave
>
>>Basically, they've created it using high power microwave sources (2-3 GHz)
>>coupled to a specially designed waveguide cavity in such a way that the
>>microwave energy created some sort of interference mode in the cavity to the
>>point where plasma was created.  I didn't really ask about specifics as we
>>had lots of radar stuff to talk about, but they said that it was so easy to
>>do, that one could do even do it with an old microwave oven and some copper
>>mesh. 
>>



It is well known that plasma balls can be created in a microwave 
oven.  A web search will turn up sites about it, but is it really 
"ball lightning"?  There are lots of ways to create luminous balls, 
from microwaves to shorting out circuits carrying large currents (as 
discussed recently), but they may or may not be the same as natural 
ball lighting.  Nobody yet knows what mechanism creates natural ball 
lightning.  That is what the long discussions on this list have been 
about.

Zap!


Charles Brush
http://www.VoltNet-dot-com