Re: Racing sparks

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

Original poster: Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-twfpowerelectronics-dot-com>

Hi Bart,
           I've been waiting for a post like this to come along as
I've had an idea sparked by a TV program I watched on "freak waves"
in the ocean. Freak waves, to briefly explain, are waves which,
almost beyond the realms of possibility, surge up out of nowhere to
heights reaching 30 metres or so. They were long held to be a
mariner's tall tale by skeptics until some recent occurrences, one of
which was captured by camera on an oil rig in the North Sea and
others which seriously damaged and nearly sank different ships in
different parts of the major oceans. Please bear with me:

On 4 Feb 2004, at 8:15, Tesla list wrote:

 > Original poster: Bart Anderson <classi6-at-classictesla-dot-com>
 >
 > Hi Tom, Gerry,
 >
 > I don't completely understand each mechanism either, but I view the
 > racing sparks incident due a couple situations:
 >
 > 1) The voltage stress somewhere along the length of the coil is high
 > enough to breakout before the charge on the top terminal is capable.
 >
 > 2) There must be node(s) or areas along the length of the secondary
 > which are pronounced enough to cause the initial breakout a direct
 > path down the secondary. And with that, the further the arc creeps
 > down the secondary, the greater the difference in potential becomes.
 > This why I think most racing sparks will typically run the full the
 > length of the coil. However, I don't think this will occur each and
 > everytime. The arc may make an abrubt turn outward part way down.
 >
 > I believe "any situation" which might cause stresses in unwanted areas
 > of the coil are capable of producing the same affect. Tuning,
 > coupling, and topload affects on current distribution along the length
 > of the coil are three areas of adjustment to reduce these stresses in
 > both 1 and 2 above.
 >
 > Someone else may have a better theory.
 > Take care,
 > Bart

To continue; the theory used to model ocean waves (I personally think
of it as a predicting rather than modelling theory) was used as a
design guideline for hull design. Based on what I saw, it was not
much more than a Gaussian curve which predicted that a freak wave
such as I've described might occur once in 10,000 years. The fact
that it was recently discovered that they happen far more often led
to an in-depth investigation. It was found that the right combination
of ocean currents coupled with opposing waves and seabed topology
near the bottom of the African continent led to such waves occurring.
However, this did not explain what was later seen by satellite
imaging; that such waves occurred far more frequently than predicted
in mid-ocean.

      A physicist-engineer who was familiar with quantum mechanics got
on the case and discovered that the profile of a freak wave matched
waves thought to be a theoretical curiosity which sprung from
Schroedinger's Wave Equation. The one tall wave basically "sucked"
the energy from waves either side it seemed. The program concluded
with the postulation that there co-exists two basic wave patterns in
the ocean - the ones normally seen and whose height vs frequency of
occurence is predicted by the classic bell-curve, and another whose
profile is predicted by the quantum-mechanical wave equation.

How this *might* relate to Tesla Coils: Wave phenomena are present in
Tesla Coils, of that there is no doubt. They occupy physical space in
a medium which places a speed limit on the transmission of a
disturbance. It occurred to me that it might be possible that racing
sparks are in fact a form of freak wave whose occurrence is induced
by presenting the necessary conditions for it to occur. Should that
be the case, it should be possible to predictably produce designs
whose energy is sufficient to allow this to happen vs designs running
at the same energy levels which do not allow it to occur (physical
parameters for the most part being equal). There are both
similarities and differences between the ocean as a transmission
medium and a resonator as a transmission medium. Just for starters,
both are high Q. The TC resonator is much more bounded than the ocean
- a major difference. However, that is at its fundamental and closely
related wavelengths, not something considerably higher.

Enough handwaving - I have to ask the math experts, what do you
think? Might there be something in this? I admit to being lazy in not
pursuing this myself.

Malcolm