MAKE YOUR OWN BALL LIGHTNING!
http://www.forteantimes.com...
In the spirit of kitchen-table inventors, a number of pioneering amateurs have been looking into how to create artificial ball lightning, using a candle and a microwave oven. We strongly advise against trying this yourself, and the writer and FT take no responsibility for your experiments.
The experiment goes like this: place a lighted candle or toothpick in the microwave for a few seconds, then take it out and start the microwave.
The result is a small luminous ‘plasmoid’ floating to the top of the microwave. Some of the best photographs of this effect may be found at
http://members.nbci.com/jln... . Proof of the microwave-ball lighting theory? Or something else entirely?
Links to these experiments can also be found at:
http:// jnaudin.free.fr/html/plasma.htm
http://www.jlnlabs.org
According to recent research, humans are not the only ones who can make ball lightning.
Snapping shrimps (Alpheus heterochaelis) can create balls of
plasma with a temperature of 5,000°C (9000°F). When the shrimp snaps its outsize claw, it makes a stream of tiny bubbles which expand and then collapse. It is this collapse which produces the plasma balls. However, with a range of three millimetres and a duration of less than a billionth of a second, it is unlikely that it has much effect beyond a flicker of light 12.
By sandman:
posted on 29-11-2002
In the spirit of kitchen-table inventors, a number of pioneering amateurs have been looking into how to create artificial ball lightning, using a candle and a microwave oven. We strongly advise against trying this yourself, and the writer and FT take no responsibility for your experiments.
The experiment goes like this: place a lighted candle or toothpick in the microwave for a few seconds, then take it out and start the microwave.
The result is a small luminous ‘plasmoid’ floating to the top of the microwave. Some of the best photographs of this effect may be found at
http://members.nbci.com/jln... . Proof of the microwave-ball lighting theory? Or something else entirely?
Links to these experiments can also be found at:
http:// jnaudin.free.fr/html/plasma.htm
http://www.jlnlabs.org
According to recent research, humans are not the only ones who can make ball lightning.
Snapping shrimps (Alpheus heterochaelis) can create balls of
plasma with a temperature of 5,000°C (9000°F). When the shrimp snaps its outsize claw, it makes a stream of tiny bubbles which expand and then collapse. It is this collapse which produces the plasma balls. However, with a range of three millimetres and a duration of less than a billionth of a second, it is unlikely that it has much effect beyond a flicker of light 12.
