On Mon, 22 Jun 2009, John Berry wrote: > That was my initial objection also, I believe that *can* happen. > > I also know that sometimes when a plasma is turned off the charges > (electrons anyway) can be propelled into the environment. Tesla found this > and so have most people who have played with Tesla coils and similar.
Then I should ignore glass-enclosed plasmas which block the particles, and instead perform a different test: use a grounded neon-sign transformer to strike an arc in air between two electrodes, surround it closely with electrically-floating window screen, then apply pulses of (positive?) high voltage to the screen with nS rise time, via a spark. The screen will pull negative particles out of the spark-plasma and accelerate them out into the air. Will I feel a stinging sensation on my face? Will it click a geiger counter? Kill cellphones? If not, then we're barking up the wrong tree, and Hiddink's effect needs argon/mercury gas tubes. > And it isn't ion wind, it is something decidedly more instant which can > easily make it through insulators. You'd have to test it personally to see whether this is true, since the 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. H. Hertz and later C. Bose were performing similar experiments, and Bose found he could focus the pulses with lenses, bend with prisms, polarize and rotate just like light waves. 1mm microwaves act much like infrared, yet they're produced by high voltage spark gaps. If the pulses were megawatts over microseconds, fractional-joule and repetitive, no doubt they'd kill electronics, and might produce those stinging sensations. They'd go through walls but be stopped by metal foil. (((((((((((((((((( ( ( ( ( (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
