High amperage in tank circuit

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Original poster: "John Richardson by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <jprich-at-up-dot-net>

Hello,

I have a few questions that I was hoping someone could answer in beginners 
terminology, or could possibly give me a link with basic explanations:

First, I hear everyone talking about the importance of large wire in tank 
connections, and the explanations that I have read all point to the fact 
that the currents can reach potentials of hundreds of amps.  The thing that 
I am not understanding, is how can we reach this kind of potential from 
supplies which are putting out much less than an amp?  I can see the 
potential for high amperages in capacitor discharge experiments, where the 
charge time for a cap bank can exceed several minutes or more with a small 
power supply (like a neon), but we are talking about discharging the 
capacitor in a TC a minimum of 120 times/sec.  How is it possible to reach 
these high currents in short periods of time?

Second, it is well known that in a synch RSG, everyone strives for 
electrode alignment at the peak of the 120 or 240 input sine wave.  I was 
under the understanding that during transformer action, a voltage is 
induced when the magnetic field collapses, not as it rises.  In light of 
this, it would seem to me that secondary voltage would rise to a peak as 
the primary field collapses, and to extrapolate this further, the secondary 
voltage rise would top out as the primary approaches zero on the sine 
wave.  Therefore, the RSG electrodes should be aligned somewhere between 45 
and 90 degrees after the input peak, which is when the secondary would be 
topping out voltage wise and the capacitor would be fully 
charged.  Obviously this isn't correct, but I need some help to understand 
what is really happening.

Finally, could someone point me to a link which explains the theory behind 
a voltage multiplier?  I have been checking like crazy, and can't find an 
explanation that I can understand.  It's hard for me to grasp the concept 
of diodes and capacitors multiplying voltage.

Thanks, and the simpler the explanation or the link, the better.

John Richardson