RE: Ball Lightning from high-amp discharge

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: "alfred erpel" <alfred@xxxxxxxxx>




I love it!  I was thinking exactly the same thing.  It brings up philosophy
too.  Anything with a name was named by humans (as far as we know so far).
What we call a rock may be "food" for some other intelligence.  Methane may
be "air" to others.

What is ball lightning right now, except a religious belief to some people?

That said, if ball lightning DOESN'T exist because it can't ever be reliably
shown to be replicated and/or theoretically posited, a thousand years from
now most true believers will still be passive disciples of the idea.  The
minority of the true believers will try to show it is real, in the way tesla
experimenters are trying.  Once something can be created consistently by
anyone, a consensus will agree on what it IS.  Then it gets a definition,
just like all other defined things have.

Al Erpel



[suff snipped]

> This brings up an interesting epistemological question.Is it
> possible to RE-create something in a laboratory if you don't
> know what IT is to start with?
>
> Matt D.