keithd@cadovax.UUCP (Keith Doyle) (06/14/85)
[...]
I'm not positive about this, but I don't think that Tesla's
'carbon button lamp' is particularly related to the 'Orb'.
I believe the carbon button lamp was constructed with an
evacuated bulb, where the few remaining atoms would bombard
the 'button' when agitated properly with HV. I think Tesla
used a version of his lamp to generate X-rays (although he
didn't know that's what they were) and produced some X-ray
photographs (anyone know if any of them are still in existance
in a museum somewhere?). The advertising brochures I have for
the 'Orb' indicate they use a special (or so they'd like you to
believe) mixture of gases (they use the term 'rare' but they probably
mean 'rarefied'). And, I get the impression that in order to observe
Tesla's described effects of the carbon button lamp, you would either
need a much smaller 'Orb' or considerably more voltage and/or current
n order to turn an 'Orb' into a 'carbon button'. I would think the electrode
in the middle of the 'Orb' is probably not carbon.
Anyone else out there who knows more about the actual workings of the
'Orb', I'd like to hear it too.
Keith Doyle
# {ucbvax,ihnp4,decvax}!trwrb!cadovax!keithd