Re: Golka video: Ball Lightning in lab. WHAT?!!!!!

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: "Mark Dunn" <mdunn@xxxxxxxxxxxx>



I saw the video, but did not hear the sound so don't know what
enlightening discussion took place on the video.
I've worked in the welding industry for 25 years and never realized
there was any debate about this.  I understand this to be nothing more
than a combination of the following:

1) The steel fragment is hot enough(~5000 Deg F) that combustion is
taking place - ie the steel is burning up.  The heat release from the
reaction is nearly sufficient to create a chain reaction.  The "nearly"
is why the reaction does not run to completion(the steel completely
consumed)and a grain is left over.  If it was Aluminum or Magnesium the
combustion would continue to completion.  Example: Fires, once started,
in an aluminum can recycling plant cannot be extinguished.  They run to
completion.  Only way to stop them would be to take away the oxygen.
Nothing is left when the fire finally goes out - except an aluminum
oxide coating all over everything.

2) A sphere of plasma created around the object by the high temperature
heating the Nitrogen/Oxygen air mixture.  Electrons jump clouds and
photons are emitted.  Remember that there are 3 ways(I think) to create
plasma: 1)Temperature 2)Pressure 3)Electrical Current.

I'm not a physics expert though, so things may be way more complicated
than I thought.

One could try the Golka experiment in an argon atmosphere and see if the
"shrinking" still occurs to learn more.

Mark