RE: Jacob's Ladder "Snap" (fwd)

[Steven Roys <sroys@xxxxxxxx>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 11:28:33 -0500
From: "Mccauley, Daniel H" <daniel.h.mccauley@xxxxxxxx>
To: High Voltage list <hvlist@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: RE: Jacob's Ladder "Snap" (fwd)


To damage your hearing, you need a significant amount of energy in the
sound wave to cause mechanical damage
to your ear.  Even if a very short transient pulse is present in the
audible range, it it so short that there
is almost zero average energy present during that transient.

I'd be more concerned about the 60Hz high voltage.  That *is* the most
dangerous part of this set-up!

Dan


> Hi Everybody,
>
> I was recently talking to one of my neighbors about the
> "strange lightning thing" that I play around with, and he
> told me of hearing a story about how a Jacob's ladder can
> hurt your hearing. He said that when the arc starts at the
> bottom, the "snap" heard is extremely loud, but so quick of a
> pulse that you don't register it as being as loud as it is.
> He didn't know whether or not it was true, and it sounded
> like a techno-myth to me, but has anyone else heard (pun
> intended) about this?
>
>
>
> -Chris
>
> "The trouble is not that the world is full of fools, it's
> just that lightning isn't distributed right." -Mark Twain
>
> "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human
> stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." -Albert Einstein
>
> [The Jacob's ladders that I've seen  make a nice, warm 60Hz hum with a
> muted, fuzzy snap at the end, nothing that would injure your
> hearing as
> far as I would think.  Other dangers...UV suntan?  Maybe.
> Death by 60Hz
> high voltage?  Definitely if you're not careful and get betwixt the
> terminals. SRR]
>
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