graner@ut-ngp.UUCP (Nicolas Graner) (03/28/85)
> Somebody mentioned having talked to people in Colorado Springs who > remembered seeing Tesla driving through town with flourescent bulbs > lit by power transmitted through the air from his lab. > > That reminds me of a short I saw in a Pop. Elect. once. (Or some such > magazine). It showed a picture of a man standing under one of those > high-tension power lines holding a flourescent bulb. It was lit! I have heard a story about a man in Paris (France) who sold 'magic' fluorescent bulbs that worked without any source of power: no battery, no solar cells or whatever... It seemed to work well but when people bought one and tried to use it at home they could never light it. The trick is that he was selling them under the Eiffel Tower, on top of which is a very powerful radio emitter. His bulbs were tuned to the right frequency. Of course in such a place most of his customers were tourists, who never had an opportunity to come back and complain. I heard that he presented his stuff in such a way that even when the trick was eventually discovered he could not be convicted of anything (he did not say explicitly that it would work in any other place, but only suggested it), but I am not quite sure of that. Nic. {ihnp4,seismo...}!ut-ngp!graner *If Murphy's law can go wrong, it won't*