On Mon, 22 Jun 2009, John Berry wrote: > On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 7:06 PM, William Beaty <bi...@eskimo.com> wrote: > > > Then I should ignore glass-enclosed plasmas which block the particles > > No, the electrons can pass through insulators, although an open air arc has > some ideal qualities.
Electrons don't pass through glass-dielectric capacitors, nor easily through the thin glass envelopes of oscilloscope tubes or Crookes "Maltese cross" tubes. Electrons *do* start passing through thin glass when accelerated in hard vacuum, but that only starts happening with voltages well over 50KV. If you propose that electrons can pass through a glass fluorescent tube, you need to explain the measurements that led you to decide it was happening. Otherwise assume that you've made a mistake (or perhaps it's not electrons.) > > The screen will pull negative particles out of the spark-plasma and > > accelerate them out into the air. > > No, the screen is formed into a cylinder so the Faraday effect ensure it > will have little effect. A Faraday cage only works if the entire circuit is enclosed. If you put a metal cylinder around a fluorescent tube, but run wires out the ends, then that is only a partial Faraday cage. In that case you need to avoid making assumptions about how it works. Instead make measurements which verify what's actually happening. The Faraday shielding effect might be zero in this circuit, but it's hard to tell without doing some tests. > > If not, then we're barking up the wrong tree, and Hiddink's effect > > needs argon/mercury gas tubes. > > Nope, just based on reports from people with Gray tubes I can tell you that > is confirmed. Ah, that's a critical bit of info. > > EM-waves emitted by fast-rise spark gap pulses are essentially the same > > thing as UHF/microwave pulses. They create HV effects, yet they bounce > > off metals and go right through insulators. > > But do they charge insulated metal? > Would they tend to charge metal with a single polarity, how about all metal > with the same polarity? Yes, they'd SEEM to charge metal if there are any ion clouds confusing the measurements by being emitted at the same time as the GHz pulses. And also yes, if the metal has sharp edges which could support corona discharge. A huge EM pulse would form "gas diodes" upon all the sharp parts of nearby metal, which emit charges into the air, which leave the metal opposite-charged. To test this possibility, see if the metal-charging effect only occurs with pieces of sheet metal, but not with a polished metal sphere lacking any sharp corona-producing parts. Another effect occurs when a plasma tube emits strong UV. This will knock electrons off of exposed metal, giving it a positive charge. It's a common demonstration performed in physics classrooms. To avoid this effect, just used painted metal. Another effect occurs when a plasma tube emits x-rays, but that possibility can be easily checked with an alpha-window geiger counter. If x-rays are involved, a conductive path can be formed from ionized air, and it connects between the plasma tube and nearby metals. The atmosphere becomes a resistor, and any nearby metals are charged because they're partly connected to your HV power supply. > > they'd kill electronics, and might produce those stinging sensations. > > They'd go through walls but be stopped by metal foil. > > But Tesla didn't find them entirely stopped by metal. Yes, that's the key to proving that it's not just GHz e-field pulses! Enclose the entire experiment inside a box of copper foil or copper window screen. Power it with batteries inside the shield, with no wires extending outside. If the phenomenon doesn't vanish when such shielding is added, then you've almost certainly got a real anomaly. (That's assuming that the anomaly is small. If instead it's large and reliably produced, where anyone can build a "ray emitter" which kills transistors at large distance, then you don't need much other evidence.) > It would be a stretch to propose that microwaves are the cause of any and > simply impossible to be the cause of most of the evidence. Seeing a confident statement that something is impossible ...sets off my alarm bells. And I hope you're not suggesting, "that many hobbyist- experimenters couldn't be wrong about this." (((((((((((((((((( ( ( ( ( (O) ) ) ) ) ))))))))))))))))))) William J. Beaty SCIENCE HOBBYIST website billb at amasci com http://amasci.com EE/programmer/sci-exhibits amateur science, hobby projects, sci fair Seattle, WA 206-762-3818 unusual phenomena, tesla coils, weird sci
