Re: Plasmoid (Ball Lightening) with a microwave resonator

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Original poster: "Jim Lux by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <jimlux-at-earthlink-dot-net>

At 12:05 PM 3/3/2003 -0700, you wrote:
>O
> >
> > Apparently J Naudin of France, (an emminent
> > experimentalist with many web pages) has been able to
> > use  pencil lead, (graphite) to produce a stable
> > plasmoid, ( Ball Lightening?).  He uses  a microwave
> > and the standard Tesla coil quarterwavelength method
> > to achieve this.

How is this different than any ordinary corona discharge off a HV point, 
then pumping a flame (which is conductive) with microwave power?

The rotation doesn't require any special explanation, as most microwave 
ovens have what is called a "mode stirrer" that is essentially a slowly 
rotating metal paddle that moves all the "hot spots" around the oven cavity.

If you fill the entire microwave oven cavity with something that lights up 
when it sees a field strength higher than some threshold, you'd see areas 
moving around as the mode stirrer does it's thing.

Marshmallows make a nice demonstration of the mode pattern, as do arrays of 
neon bulbs.