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Re: FUN: high-speed electrostatic air-threads



Updates:
Electrostatic Air-threads
http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/weird/unusual/airthred.html


On Mon, 8 Jun 1998, Francis J. Stenger wrote:

billb wrote:
If I had, I'd
have had to leap from my bath and run down the street shouting "I've
found it!

Bill, just this one vision is all I need to make my day! :-)

Allova Sudden it hit me! Suck, not blow! EUREKA!

What drives the air flow? Not polarity apparently (maybe I should double
check though.) It seems to be driven by the direction of the e-field's
gradient. Perhaps when an electrostatic air-thread is between identical
electrodes, it can still exist but without transporting any air. Or
perhaps the shapes of any e-fields can be manipulated so that the air is
drawn FROM the surface of the mist, rather than blowing down into it.
After all, air is (possibly) being drawn from the sharp tip of the emitter
fiber and entering the mouth of the invisible vacuum cleaner hose. Maybe
both ends blow air outwards, rather than drawing air in at one end and
emitting it from the other. So, if air-threads should turn out to be
scale-independant in the same way that turbulence, sparks, etc., are scale
independant, then I am not ENTIRELY crazy if I jump up screaming:

BERNIE VONNEGUT WAS RIGHT! TORNADOES ARE ELECTROSTATIC ENGINES!

What if this is true? What if ten-meter air-threads extend invisibly for
miles out of certain thunderstorms, and a certain rare shape of e-field
causes them to transport air from the ground towards the sky? The e-field
of the thunderstorm would drive them, and so they would constitute a type
of invisible corona streamer which discharges the electrical energy in the
thunderstorm while also transporting ionized air. I've always wondered
what would happen if lightning had high resistance, so it could stay
"turned on" for many minutes as it wandered over the ground. Maybe the
answer is "phenomenon called tornado."

If the velocity of air in the air-thread "tube" was a few hundred KPH,
then a terrific whirlpool of air would form at the termination point of
the air thread. Higher up, there would be no vortex, there would just be
the usual (if bizarre) transparent air-thread and it's constrained laminar
flowing core (plus timber, cattle, witches on bicycles.) WHAT DO THE
TOPS OF REAL TORNADOES LOOK LIKE? Like a trash fountain? Or like a
laminar stream that extends all the way to the thundercloud?

I never would have considered something like this if I had not seen an
air-thread shrug off my high-velocity saliva-laden air blast. A gigantic
air-thread might not even SEE the physical motion of the immense tornado
at its termination point on the earth's surface.

So... snip an air-thread, kill a tornado? They do seem a bit robust
though. Might not be so easy. I'll have to try spraying an electrolyte
solution fog at an air thread, see if it notices. Maybe that's why
tornadoes are weaker when crossing water. Or maybe this is insane, and
has nothing at all to do with tornadoes.

((((((((((((((((((((( ( ( ( ( (O) ) ) ) ) )))))))))))))))))))))
William J. Beaty SCIENCE HOBBYIST website
billb@eskimo.com www.eskimo.com/~billb
EE/programmer/sci-exhibits science projects, tesla, weird science
Seattle, WA 206-781-3320 freenrg-L taoshum-L vortex-L webhead-L