Re: 12 MV 100 years ago

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

Original poster: "Malcolm Watts by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <m.j.watts-at-massey.ac.nz>

Hi Peter,

On 20 May 2003, at 12:09, Tesla list wrote:

 > Original poster: "Peter Terren by way of Terry Fritz 
<teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <pterren-at-iinet-dot-net.au>
 >
 > ----- Original Message -----
 > From: "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
 > To: <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
 > Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2003 8:43 AM
 > Subject: Re: 12 MV 100 years ago
 >
 >
 >  > Some sources say that Tesla reached voltages like 12 MV
 >  >  using  his magnifier in Colorado Springs.
 >
 > 12 MV is comparable to natural lightning which is between 10 and 120 MV.
 > This is much less than you would expect from 1 MV giving 4 feet with a Tesla
 > coil due to the nature of spark propagation.
 > The biggest tesla coils currently at around 55 ft are about 5.5 MV.
 > The longest spark described at 100m (325ft) was generated by a 5 MV
 > generator in Siberia.
 > References for these statements on my website at
 > http://members.iinet-dot-net.au/~pterren/Tesla%20coils%20intro.htm
 >
 > Peter (Tesla Downunder)

I had a look at one of those references. There is a bald statement
that Vout = such and such without a scrap of theoretical
justification for the formula. In fact, a consideration of output
voltage taking energy conservation into account invalidates the
claims made above. This has been known about for a long time. I
posted something about this just a week or two ago and there must be
dozens of messages dating back more than 7 years in the list archives.

Malcolm