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Re: St. Elmo's Fire?
Subject: Re: St. Elmo's Fire?
Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 10:33:21 -0700
From: "DR.RESONANCE" <DR.RESONANCE-at-next-wave-dot-net>
To: "Tesla List" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
St. Elmo's "fire" is a high voltage direct current discharge that
ancient
mariners noted coming off the crow's nest of tall ships mast especially
during times with a lot of culmulo nimbus (big black thunderclouds)
overhead. It is a DC discharge, also sometimes called Trichel Pulses
which
occur from a HV terminal such as on a Wimshurst machine. It can occur
as a
steady glow or intermittant pulses of HV direct current discharge. It
is
called fire because it is usually rather quiet as compared to a
lightning
strike.
I noted it once while skiing in the mountains of Colorado -- it was
shooting off large rocks and discharging into the air about 4 feet ---
during the daytime! Needless to say we vacated the area rather rapidly
and
a powerful thunderstorm soon followed in the same area we saw it.
Most of Tesla's work was with AC and RF currents although he did do some
interesting work with a Van de Graaff style generator using an air
blower
and some dust (flour) materials.
DR.RESONANCE-at-next-wave-dot-net
----------
> From: Tesla List <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
> To: tesla-at-poodle.pupman-dot-com
> Subject: St. Elmo's Fire?
> Date: Monday,April 21,1997 10:12 PM
>
> Subject: Question
> Date: Mon, 21 Apr 1997 19:11:59 -0400 (EDT)
> From: FriarSpam-at-aol-dot-com
> To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
>
>
> What is St. Elmo's Fire? I think it has something to do with Nikola
> Tesla.
>
>
> Ty (FriarSpam-at-aol-dot-com)