Re: Tesla's large pancake coil

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: William Beaty <billb@xxxxxxxxxx>

On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, Tesla list wrote:

> In this drawing it was definitely an artist's sketch.

It's a *drawing.*   By definition it's an artist's sketch.

I was speculating on an odd idea I had:  perhaps these just might be
accurate drawing made from life, since both of them show the discharge
path directed outwards and away from the pancake coil.  Do discharges from
pancake-shaped tesla coils actually behave as shown?   Has anyone here
ever built a large one?

If the EM field from a pancake coil did tend to force the streamers to
occupy a narrow cone directed away from the coil, then it *might* be
relatively safe to sit very near the coil while it's operating.  It would
be yet another way to impress the newbies in 1895.

If it's not dangerous, then that drawing might depict a real demonstration
witnessed by the artist, and not an imaginary situation. On the other
hand, at Colorado Springs, Tesla was making time-lapse photos of coils
operating in the dark, and then later firing off flash powder to put the
image of the room onto the same photograph.  In those famous photos, the
room image and the discharge image were made at different times.  (Photos
can lie just as easily as artists can!  Even worse, people tend to assume
that drawings don't depict reality, even when the artist is being totally
accurate, and people tend to trust photos, even when they're fake
multiple-exposures.)


>
> In reality, a completely flat spiral Tesla transformer did exist.

Huh?  I think you may have missed the other URLs in my message.  Here they
are again:

   http://www.teslasociety.com/pictures/labpic.jpg
   http://www.teslasociety.com/posters/teslalab.jpg
   http://www.teslasociety.com/pictures/teslapic.jpg



(((((((((((((((((( ( (  (   (    (O)    )   )  ) ) )))))))))))))))))))
William J. Beaty                http://staff.washington.edu/wbeaty/
beaty@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx       Research Engineer
billb@xxxxxxxxxx                UW Chem Dept,  Bagley Hall RM74
206-543-6195                    Box 351700, Seattle, WA 98195-1700