EXPERIMENTAL CREATION OF BALL LIGHTNING
W. Beaty,  Nov 1996

There reports that candles, burning matter, etc., when placed in an active
microwave oven will generate a moving plasmoid.

Something to try: create some light soot or some carbon aerogel.  Replace
the air within its structure with ozone, nitrogen, argon, etc.  Place this
sample in a microwave oven and apply power.  Anything happen?

Or place the sample between the electrodes of an energy storage capacitor
and initiate a discharge.  Is a stable Corum-style BL created?

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Paul M. Kolok <pmk%prometheus@mimsy.umd.edu> writes:
>Chris Morriss <CRSM@oroboros.demon.co.uk> writes:
>The recent miniature ball lightning discussion took me back to my early
>teens when I was an enthusiastic but illegal pirate radio operator
>together with a few of my friends.  One of the things we used to try to do
>was to develop antenna tuning units that would manage to get very short
>lengths of wire to act as a transmitting antenna.  The RF voltages on the
>antenna were very high and I often got very painful RF arcs to the skin of 
>my hand, accompanied by the unmistakable smell of roast human!
>The interesting thing is that 2 or 3 times when I got an RF arc to a piece
>of surrounding metalwork I saw a miniature spherical orange/yellow ball
>detach itself from the arc and travel in a zig-zag path for perhaps a
>couple of seconds.
>As it travelled it made a sizzling noise with small 'firework sparkler'
>type bits coming out of it.  The ball could only have been 1 or 2mm in
>diameter.  I guess these things might also have been of the same form as
>ball lightning.
>Has anybody else noticed anything like this?

Yes, three cases that I have heard of, although one of them may have 
been partially, mostly, or entirely molten and rapidly oxidizing hot 
beads from a copper electrode strike to iron forming the edge of a 
water filled tank.  Here 1 or 2 mm glowing balls levitated over the 
water surface on a shallow cushion (probably steam).   

Corliss reported an incident of pea size balls that came across a
kitchen table and rolled around the edge of a dinner knife before
extinguishing.  These may have resulted from the decay of a much 
larger ball lightning.  

Corliss, W.R., "Lightning, Auroras, Nocturnal Lights, and Related 
        Luminous Phenomena", 1982. (Published and distributed by 
        The Sourcebook Project, P.O. Box 107, Glen Arm, MD  21057) 
        Tel: (301) 668-6047 (oldish number and address)

Steven Jones reported producing some (actually a graduate student 
of his?) which were generated by an ordinary hand held tesla coil 
of the type used to quick check vacuum in glass vacuum systems. It
was produced by attaching an syringe needle to the output electrode
and then tracing or lightly moving the tip of the needle of a thick
glass plate (pyrex?).  This was related to me a at the dawn of the
CF stuff when I meet Steve at an APS meeting in Baltimore.  The
story is approximately true, as I didn't record things in writing,
nor did I tie up loose ends.  

Steve is really the one to describe this last work and correct any of
my faulty memory or creatively filled in gaps.  When I saw Steve
last fall I ask him to do a quicky recreation with a view though
a diffraction grating just to see if it was still "real".  I suppose he
could check the magnetics using one of those "black and white Scotty"
magnets.  Simple experiments, sometimes can open up astounding lines 
of new research.   Unfortunately, the man is very busy. But hey!
all you chemy types with your tesla coils and needles, why not give
it a try, and report back to me or the net.  ,   

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