keithd@cadovax.UUCP (Keith Doyle) (11/09/84)
> ... If I see ball lightning rolling down the >street towards me, than this is strong, legitimate evidence for the empirical >existence of ball lightning. ... > Topher Speaking of ball lightning, I seem to remember that Nikola Tesla was the only person to artificially create this phenomenon, and noone knows quite how he did it. Is this still true? Is anyone doing any experimentation? Keith Doyle {ucbvax,decvax}!trwrb!cadovax!keithd
root@ucla-cs.UUCP (11/12/84)
In article <283@cadovax.UUCP> keithd@cadovax.UUCP (Keith Doyle) writes: > >Speaking of ball lightning, I seem to remember that Nikola Tesla was the >only person to artificially create this phenomenon, and noone knows quite >how he did it. Is this still true? Is anyone doing any experimentation? > Someone at Livermore has apparently recreated the phenomenon. He found some sort of surplus high-voltage equipment on the base and made it explode (somehow); ultra-high-speed photography revealed a bright "ball" that bounced several times on the ground. I saw this on a recent television show in Los Angeles. Anyone know who this guy is? Douglas
brownc@utah-cs.UUCP (Eric C. Brown) (11/13/84)
Actually, Nikola Tesla was the only person (as far as I know) who could *reliably and repeatedly* produce ball lightning. My information has it that ball lightning sometimes shows up around high-voltage posts, but nobody knows how it is created. Eric C. Brown ..!decvax!harpo!utah-cs!brownc
dave@rocksvax.UUCP (11/17/84)
One of the EE profs at Univerity of Buffalo is doing work on creating that
kind of stuff. They have a bunch of scary caps (many MFD and Volts) sitting
in the hall to store the energy required to fire one off. Don't know if
he succeeded but bet he gets one big lightning bolts.
Dave
arpa: Sewhuk.HENR@Xerox.ARPA
uucp: {allegra,rochester,amd,sunybcs}!rocksvax!dave