Years ago when I studied electronics on the university, there was a Dutch physics teacher who presented a model on fireball lightning. That was around the same time that in the USA James Tuck was doing research on the same subject.
The model suggested that a fusion reaction was providing the energy to stabilize the plasma (ball-lightning has been reported to live for minutes).
He even went on to emit shares to finance a few experiments that came up inconclusive at that time (I even bought for something like $100 on shares, you never know
To my suprise the company resurected after his retirement and he is at it once again! He seems to have published a book but I could not find it (googled it quickly). See: http://www.convectron.eu/en/home/
So what do you think? will it work? is he on to something?
I had one of those ball lightning things in my living room once. It glowed green. I did not feel like coming in contact with it. I think it was about a foot and a half across.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
MSimon wrote:I had one of those ball lightning things in my living room once. It glowed green. I did not feel like coming in contact with it. I think it was about a foot and a half across.
How long did it stay alive? And was it radiating a lot of heat?
Both Tuck and Dijkhuis made ball lightning using huge currents in short circuited submarine accu's. What else can it be than some self confined plasma? I always wondered how such a plasma could be stable in air and apparently not emit (lots of) heat.
I'll try to find the book and see if I can order it
MSimon wrote:I had one of those ball lightning things in my living room once. It glowed green. I did not feel like coming in contact with it. I think it was about a foot and a half across.
How long did it stay alive? And was it radiating a lot of heat?
Both Tuck and Dijkhuis made ball lightning using huge currents in short circuited submarine accu's. What else can it be than some self confined plasma? I always wondered how such a plasma could be stable in air and apparently not emit (lots of) heat.
I'll try to find the book and see if I can order it
It lasted about 10 seconds. It wasn't radiating heat. Only light (no other detectors operating so it may have been radiating other things).
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
The late Dr. Paul Koloc believed ball lightning was a natural spheromak (spherical cousin of a tokomak). He did not believe natural ball lightning produced fusion (more than the barest trace, anyway) but did think one could make a fusion reactor using the principle. In other words, the stability of a spheromak's self-generating/containing magnetic field would lend itself to fusion, rather than the other way around.
I've always wondered if Focus Fusion's plasmoids might have the same basic spheromak magnetic structure. I've never seen anything to suggest they think so.
That does not seem like a closed case to me ... plenty of doubt.
For Koloc, the key was the observation that ball lightning can pass thru intact glass (something my sisters once witnessed). That ought to be impossible for a plasma. It is very possible for a magnetic field. There must be some accompanying energy capable of ionizing gas on the far side of the glass, though, likely a strong oscillating electric field.
There are several experimenters out there who claim to have generated ball lightning, but the typical experimental description is not much different from a welder's sparks, and they won't pass thru glass.
Part of the problem is almost certainly that there is more than one phenomenon going by the label "ball lightning."
Let me explain the system that created the "ball".
I was living out in the country and had put up a long wire antenna to do ham radio stuff. I used a spark plug as a lightning arrester plus I had a grounding switch. I lived in a dome.
Lightning hit the antenna (can't remember if it was grounded - probably was - the radios survived). And the ball emerged from the radio room. It definitely had net charge. I assume the green glow was due to vaporized copper in the antenna circuit (an after the fact deduction). I was backing away from it slowly keeping my distance. About 4 or 5 feet.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
MSimon wrote:Let me explain the system that created the "ball".
I was living out in the country and had put up a long wire antenna to do ham radio stuff. I used a spark plug as a lightning arrester plus I had a grounding switch. I lived in a dome.
Lightning hit the antenna (can't remember if it was grounded - probably was - the radios survived). And the ball emerged from the radio room. It definitely had net charge. I assume the green glow was due to vaporized copper in the antenna circuit (an after the fact deduction). I was backing away from it slowly keeping my distance. About 4 or 5 feet.
1st rule of insta-slag evaporative breakers...walk, do not run. The plasmaball will chase you if you run. As I recall, this was based on the lower air pressure created in your wake as you flee...
On further thought, I also recall that this was first taught to me by a crotchety old EMC, who also taught me that the first thing you do with a man down is to take his wallet...then do the ABCs (Airway, Breathing, Circulation).
He had a lot of 1st rules...
The development of atomic power, though it could confer unimaginable blessings on mankind, is something that is dreaded by the owners of coal mines and oil wells. (Hazlitt)
What I want to do is to look up C. . . . I call him the Forgotten Man. (Sumner)
MSimon wrote:Let me explain the system that created the "ball".
I was living out in the country and had put up a long wire antenna to do ham radio stuff. I used a spark plug as a lightning arrester plus I had a grounding switch. I lived in a dome.
Lightning hit the antenna (can't remember if it was grounded - probably was - the radios survived). And the ball emerged from the radio room. It definitely had net charge. I assume the green glow was due to vaporized copper in the antenna circuit (an after the fact deduction). I was backing away from it slowly keeping my distance. About 4 or 5 feet.
Maybe it was an electric life form. With evil intentions. But with an ineffective and unfairly brief life span.
How big was it, btw? Golf ball or beach ball size?
Edit: NM, I see you said 1.5' diameter in prior post.
