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Re: BL saga




<< Hi all,
           I stuck some charred wood on top of my work coil last 
 evening and fired her up. Some bright spots did appear in the 
 streamers but you really had to look for them. It would be a bold 
 soul that could claim this was ball lightning. They appeared to be 
 burining particles of carbon ejected from the charcoal, probably by 
 the electric fields. The spots were formed in air streamers and I 
 suspect that the considerably brighter attached discharges would all 
 but mask the effect. They were not at all long lived and appeared 
 only in the streamers.
 
 Malcolm
 
Hi Malcom, All,

Yes I read this in Corum papers, too and of course I tried it. I used a
burning candle to provide a continues stream of soot off a small wire that was
electricly connected to the sphere on the TC. I got the same results Malcom
did (read no ball lightning....Sigh.. too bad). I didnīt really expect it to
do this. If BL was so easy to make, everyone who has a TC would be doing it. I
didnīt post it yet, because I thought I was doing something wrong. And I
didnīt want to look like a fool.

Now,after reading Malcomīs post  I strongly suspect this was wishful thinking
of the Corum brothers. It seems plausibel that this might help in the creation
of ball lightning under the right conditions as the plasma has a "source" to
catch and grow on. However, Corumīs paper state this alone will create ball
lightning. I have to disagree with them here.

Another interesting experiment would be the lightning tube. This tube has two
tungsten filaments on each side. In the middle is a platin anode to which a HV
source is applied. The other HV connection goes to both (paralled) filaments
(one side). By switching the filament current on/off an back on or
superimposing a high current spike on the filaments a small amount of tungsten
is sputtered off, again giving the plasma an object to catch and grow on. (BL
seems to need a "seed" to get started). The plasma changes in color, forms a
ball shape and grows. However it has never been witnessed to leave this glass
tube. So is it really BL?

Coiler greets from germany,
Reinhard