Monday, January 30, 2006
Great Ballsa Fire - Part 2
556 comments - Click for Blog by Thunbderbolt 2012THE SHINING. An extraordinarily large—about 100 meters in diameter—object presumed to be ball lightning was caught on film by a park ranger in Australia. It lasted surprisingly long, about 5 minutes.- Abrahamson
In Part 1, I presented an overview and general description of the Ball Lightning phenomenon, along with specific case histories. The overall impressions left by these objects are invariably wonder, mystery and sometimes terror. They may seem almost supernatural. In this section, we shall present attempts at scientific explanations for these objects. We shall start by looking at the experience of Nicola Tesla with the ball lightning phenomenon. Tesla is widely recognized as a pioneering researcher in the field of high voltage wireless power transmission. It was in the process of working with apparatus designed for the generation of very high mega-voltages that Tesla began to encounter the ball lightning phenomenon. It was apparently not because Tesla had any particular interest in the study of these objects, but rather because of the destructive effects they were having on his high voltage towers and other equipment, which led him to explore the matter further. Thanks to FBI investigative documents obtained via FOIA and former TEM blog participant OB2, provided to me by ericswan, I can present the following insights into the ball lightning research experience of Tesla and his co-workers.
The last paragraph in the above excerpt describes a proposed process for the induction of resonant high frequency electric currents into warships so as to induce fireball production and destroy the vessel. This does not seem to be an idea directly attributable to Tesla, but one wonders if there could be a connection between this and the "Philadelphia Experiments" ?
I should point out that the vast majority of the FBI documents from which the above excerpts were taken dealt with efforts by that agency to procure the personal notes of Nicola Tesla after his death in 1943. Those notes which contain the real technical information about his research went to his nephew or were grabbed by the FBI which saw them as a national security issue, as Tesla had said that he could create an invisible high voltage wall along coastlines to destroy formations of enemy bombers that might try to pass through it.
In the final analysis, in the absence of the actual research papers of Tesla himself and because of the difficulty in translating the technical terminology used at the beginning of the last century meaningfully into that of the science we know today, we shall for the time being have to search elsewhere for a detailed theoretical model to explain the existence of ball lightning.
Such a model may now be available. The first page of a technical document showing a theory based on a Stable Plasma Toroid (SPT) concept is shown below. The entire document may be viewed (if you dare, as there are equations) at:
http://www.electronpowersystems.com/Images/Ball%20Lightning%20Explained.pdf
The assertion here is that ball lighting can be explained by these self-contained structures of closed loop electric currents acting as the outer boundary of a closed loop , self generated magnetic field contained within the outer ring of the torus.
But, it does not exactly look like a BALL, does it? Well, let us refer back to Part 1 of this blog, to the first case history of the English gardener who looked down at his feet and discovered that he had a bright, bluish-green little friend tagging along. Let us review part of his description of what he saw:
"Suddenly I seemed to be in the center of intense blackness and looking down I
observed at my feet a ball about 2 feet across. It was of a pale blue-green
color and SEEMED MADE OF A MASS OF WRITHING STRINGS OF LIGHT, ABOUT 1/4 INCH IN DIAMETER."
So, how might we get from a simple "spaghetti-o" toroid to a "mass of writhing strings of light"?
An answer might be forthcoming if we realize that it is not at all important that a PERFECT circular toroid be maintained. What IS definitely important is that the electron current loops and the contained magnetic field both maintain CLOSED paths. If I were to take one of these toroids, stretch it out and bend it into a figure 8, is there a reason why it would no longer function as an electromagnetic containment vessel ? Since the two closed loop conditions would still be maintained, I contend that there is no electrical reason why this figure-8 structure ,or even a much more complicated structure, should not continue to function as an energy containment vessel. Let’s suppose I give one of these toroids to a kid and let him/her keep stretching it and tying it into as many knots as possible (no kinks, please !). Do you think they might eventually come up with a knotted ball of "writhing strings of light" similar to that which was described by the gardener ?
The other related alternative is to grab a whole bunch of SPT’s, stretch them and tie them together in knots.
In the natural setting, however, it is probably the extreme E-field levels present in lightning bolts that result in the simultaneous formation of legions of very long SPT’s that bind together and "writhe" due to the fact that their magnetic fields are not perfectly contained and they can attract or repel each other at short distances.
It is here that the SPT phenomenon may interlink with "Birkland Currents", a plasma phenomenon described by plasma cosmologists who put forth the "Electric Universe" theories. According to this view, the sun is sustained by a convergence of intergalactic plasma currents and the glow of the sun is electric in origin with it’s radiation originating from the outer regions , with no "fusion reactor" activity interior to it.
http://www.electric-cosmos.org/sun.htm
The striking close-up photo below of the solar surface showing myriads of densely packed filament-like electromagnetic structures writhing about should raise some suspicion in the observers mind that the same basic electromagnetic processes at work in the small, 2 ft lightning ball with it’s mass of writhing string-like filaments observed by the English gardener in his back yard are the same forces driving the sun and the stars . Any one of you who sees a lightning ball in the future might contemplate that they are looking at a small sun and a bearer of ill-tidings for the rigid, ego-centric science of our age .