Spark augmenter (will it work?)

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Original poster: "K. C. Herrick" <kchdlh@xxxxxxx>

The colloquy under the topic "Concentric spheres- an hypothesis" led 
me to the "spark-augmenter" concept that I've diagrammed and will ask 
Chip to post as 
<http://www.pupman.com/current/kcherrick/augmentr>http://www.pupman.com/current/kcherrick/augmentr. 
I haven't quite gotten substantial sparks yet from my re-build so I 
can't try it.  But perhaps someone will--or will shoot it down 
out-of-hand from first principles.
The idea stems from a) the observation that the concentric-sphere 
arrangement produces longer sparks than the same apparatus without 
the inner sphere; and b) my notion that a very rapid dv/dt applied to 
the top electrode will cause the electrode's charge momentarily to 
exceed the spark's capability to discharge it, because of the finite 
spark-propagation time.  That notion would explain the 
concentric-sphere augmentation.
KCH