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On Sun, 30 Nov 1997, brian whatcott wrote:
You are indeed wrong to think that electric breakdown does not occur in the
vacuum. It is intuitively plausible but in fact, the breakdown voltage
is smaller for a given vacuum gap than for an air gap. This was a matter of
considerable practical importance when high power radars were carried to
great heights, where they proceeded to misbehave until their waveguides
were pressurized.
Well, I think this is another case of the conflict between the ideal,
which is what Ludwik is interested in, and the "merely" practical--that
which brian is so adept at reminding us all of.
Clearly, to the extent that "electric breakdown" requires the presence of
a gas, it simply cannot happen in a vacuum.
A. John Mallinckrodt