Re: Ball lightning - Terry's thoughts....

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: Steve Conner <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

> If you climb inside with a
> flashlight, you'll have a view
> of infinity, like a grid of infinite tunnels
> extending in all directions.

Woo Bill! I want some of what you're smoking! :-9 That
has got to be the best explanation I've ever heard of
how it works.

It makes me think that when we do these BL and melting
experiments, we are using the microwave oven exactly
like a vacuum tube Tesla coil. The same principles of
resonant voltage rise are happening, and the same
guidelines of making the secondary out of low-loss
materials apply.

The only difference is that, on account of the waves
being so short, we can make the secondary "coil" from
a hollow piece of metal and put the breakout point
inside! :-o And instead of "colossal discharges" that
look like lightning, we get balls of white-hot plasma.

Tesla talked about dielectric heating and diathermy
with high frequency currents in his writings and
patents. So I think on the grounds of this we could
start claiming that the Tesla coil did find a
commercial application after all :-)

Steve Conner