Good thanks. Looks like another confirmation that Ball Lightning is
simply a Meissner
Effect of the fact that Lightning strikes are Capacitor Currents and
are Superconductivity
events. There is no resistance in a lightning bolt strike because the
energy in is equal to
energy out in Conservation of Energy.

The "ball formation" is the ideal-diamagnetism.

Now I read somewhere where people suspect a microwave oven can
simulate ball-lightning.
But a microwave oven is not a capacitor current, so a microwave oven
is not a ball-lightning.

This prompted recall of 20 years ago reading a biography of a great pioneer
in the field of electricity; I believe it was of Tesla but I invite
correction if any reader recognises another respected inventor here. (It
would have to be Tesla or Edison, as I think they are the only engineers
whose biographies I've ever read.)

Anyway, he was a proud showman, and one of his popular parlour tricks (I
use the phrase advisedly emphasising that he was not at all a magician) was
to take a glowing "ball of electricity" from a briefcase, juggle it before
an astonished audience, then return the glowing electricity to the case
ready for the next evening. He never told anyone how he manufactured this
ball lightning, nor how he managed to store it, and he left no clues in his
personal papers, so the secret died with him. No one else has ever
discovered how to do it.

Perhaps there's your homework. (It should be much easier than scattering
thistledown around the troposphere, too!)
--
John Savage (my news address is not valid for email)

On Aug 12, 12:23*am, John Savage wrote:


Good thanks. Looks like another confirmation that Ball Lightning is
simply a Meissner
Effect of the fact that Lightning strikes are Capacitor Currents and
are Superconductivity
events. There is no resistance in a lightning bolt strike because the
energy in is equal to
energy out in Conservation of Energy.

The "ball formation" is the ideal-diamagnetism.

Now I read somewhere where people suspect a microwave oven can
simulate ball-lightning.
But a microwave oven is not a capacitor current, so a microwave oven
is not a ball-lightning.

This prompted recall of 20 years ago reading a biography of a great pioneer
in the field of electricity; I believe it was of Tesla but I invite
correction if any reader recognises another respected inventor here. (It
would have to be Tesla or Edison, as I think they are the only engineers
whose biographies I've ever read.)

Anyway, he was a proud showman, and one of his popular parlour tricks (I
use the phrase advisedly emphasising that he was not at all a magician) was
to take a glowing "ball of electricity" from a briefcase, juggle it before
an astonished audience, then return the glowing electricity to the case
ready for the next evening. He never told anyone how he manufactured this
ball lightning, nor how he managed to store it, and he left no clues in his
personal papers, so the secret died with him. No one else has ever
discovered how to do it.

Perhaps there's your homework. (It should be much easier than scattering
thistledown around the troposphere, too!)
--
John Savage * * * * * * * *(my news address is not valid for email)

John, nice post.

I agree with you that Tesla was quite a showman, and also a very
creative engineer before his mental illness set in.

Back when I was a kid about the age of 10, my dad took me to a
traveling science show called the "General Electric House of Magic" or
something of the sort. Back in the early 1950s it toured the country
carrying their equipment in a 40' ft or so 18-wheeler.

The demonstrations included the largest Tesla Coil that I had seen to
that point in life, and the show included their production of a
glowing plasma globe from a box, just as you describe Tesla doing.
They held it up in the air, and sparks from the Tesla Coil jumped to
it. It wasn't ball lighting, but it would be easy to convince a kid
that it was.

Later, they demonstrated in impulse generator with storage capacitors,
and split a log in half with a single strike of atrificial lightning.
I remember the sound actually hurting my ears.

However, what I most remember is their demonstrate of a strobe light,
the first I had ever seen. They spun a simple disk of paper (actually
a chart recorder disk) around until it broke into pieces, at which
point the strobe fired. In the shadow of the disk there was a
phosphorescent panel of some type, what reatained the image of the
fragmenting parts of the disk at the moment when the strobe fired.
That left a lasting impression on a 10 year old!

Damn, I wish some of our current technology firms would sponsor more
shows like this, because that tend to foster a lasting interest in to
the 'mysteries' of science and technology in young people, as this
show did me.

I wonder how many kids of my age at that time, I'm now 70. remember
seeing that show, and then going on to an education in science?

Just for the benefit of the 'old guys' reading this, today kids do
'dumpster diving' for their 'research supplies', Back then it was the
town dump where you had to battle with the rats for the 'good stuff.'
Damn, if our parents didn't know what we did when they lost track of
us, that was good!

Harry C.