Re: Ball Lightning

[Bernard Cleyet <anngeorg@PACBELL.NET>]

Old Sci. Am article reported on ball lightning, which I presume is the same as
discussed.  Only detail I remember was the report by a reputable Victorian that
its dissipation in a container of water brought it to boiling, thereby the
article writer calculated its energy.

bc

P.s. Dimmer memory of a colloquium on ball lightning (@ USC ca. 1959/60).   I
remember there being a discussion of the typical E necessary to create and
whether USC's Klystron driven LinAc's E, just brought on line, would be
sufficient.



William Beaty wrote:

> On Mon, 18 Mar 2002, Emigh, David wrote:
>
> > Thanks for the response.  Actually you helped clarify my questions.  The
> > first is "is it ok to do this to a microwave". I mean if I take our popcorn
> > microwave at work to do this are my collegues going to kill me.
>
> I've heard that the failure mode of magnetron tubes involves the
> metal/glass seals, or sometimes a softening of the glass itself.  Old
> glass-ended magnetrons supposedly were very prone to this, hence the many
> warnings about putting a glass of water in the oven to act as a load.
> Modern magnetrons have ceramic at the output port rather than glass.
> Still, you might want to buy a $5 microwave oven at a garage sale just for
> doing "experiments."   I've yet to damage a microwave (except by soot
> stains!)
>
> Once the plasma alights, it acts as a load.  It's the brief time of
> silence at the start which might possibly pop the vacuum on the magnetron.
>
> > The second
> > is I am wondering about the use of the word "stable".  Are these "driven" by
> > the micorwave and once the power is turned off the plasmoid falls apart, or
> > is it stable for some reasonable time frame after the power is turned off.
>
> To the eye they wink out instantly when the power is turned off.  They
> give a loud 120hz buzzing, so they probably cool significantly within
> milliseconds between the AC pulses.  But if they switched off entirely
> after each pulse, the "blob" would stick to the object which re-triggers
> it, and would not be able to float around on its own.
>
> I've heard that these plasmoids can penetrate a barrier of frit.  Maybe
> some electrons or ions get through.  Or even some UV?
>
> (((((((((((((((((( ( (  (   (    (O)    )   )  ) ) )))))))))))))))))))
> William J. Beaty                            SCIENCE HOBBYIST website
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