Horace Heffner wrote:
Even more sad. Sigh.
I had a few hopes for this one, but it looks really bad. This is just
another ion driven gadget. The ball end indeed apparently attracts (and
is attracted by) the ions in front of it and creates a wind over and
around the ping pong ball. This wind might even be demonstrated with
some kind of super light telltale (down?) glued to the surface of the
ping pong ball. The "parachutes" used in the experiment web site photos
would have better been directly behind the ping pong balls and
orthogonal to the wire - so as to direct the wind radially. That still
would not stop the rotation, but would slow it somewhat.
I think Borbas was expecting the wind to be coming from behind the
balls, like a "rocket exhaust".... he didn't expect it to be coming from
in front of them. The wind from the corona wires can be felt, as a cool
breeze, and it takes almost no wind at all to move the device a great
deal. Also, even if the wind is too slow to easily detect, if a large
mass of air is moved, at a slow speed, it can be just as effective as a
small jet of (easily detectable) wind at high speed. This seems to be
what happens on the outside of the plastic bag. Plus, the bag itself
gets charged in spots, and this interacts with everything around it,
including more air.
Yes, but that is to be expected. It is only the sustained circular
motion that is important.
As long as a rotating field is set up beween the device and surrounding
medium, the rotation can continue. The air is just sort of a non-obvious
stator.
So true, it is troublesome. Even pure magnetic stuff can be difficult
from similar artifacts. Heat or buoyancy is often a culprit. Still, I
think it is well worth the look when there is a logical reason. It is
especially well worth the look when someone else goes to the trouble and
expense! 8^)
Heh, well I figured it would be more productive of me to do some
experiments and post them, rather than argue with people over taxing
driver's to death and destroying the economy. I suppose they might be
mad at me for this though, too: I bet I made some greenhouse gases
during my experiments. And a bit of ozone (tropospheric, the bad
kind...) and nitrogen oxides to boot. I that regard, the experiment I
did is probably just about as dangerous to the environment as having
one's lunch money stolen.
...sorry, I couldn't resist. :)
--Kyle
