Dave,
I agree with you but after sleeping on it, I think there is A CHANCE that conditions in a big electrical discharge may be able to produce x-rays. In high power discharges the temperatures can be in the tens of thousands of degrees K. From the ideal gas law, this means the left side of the PV=nRT equation will jump up at the moment of air discharge. A large pressure wave moving outward from the conductive channel means increased channel volume as pressure in the channel is trying to equilibrate with atmospheric pressure. As the energy in the bolt starts to wane, temperature drops rapidly since energy is being radiated away at a rate proportional to fourth power of Temperature. Now that the temperature has dropped rapidly , there is a vacuum in the channel until the air can rush. Depending on the cooling rate and the momentum of the air rushing outward from the stroke, absolute pressures in the single torr seem possible as the current in the bolt is falling to zero. Lower pressures will allow higher potentials and maybe the possibilty of a higher energy photon burst.
Frank S.
X-ray, Gamma BTI bubble detector
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Frank Sanns
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Re: X-ray, Gamma BTI bubble detector
Achiever's madness; when enough is still not enough. ---FS
We have to stop looking at the world through our physical eyes. The universe is NOT what we see. It is the quantum world that is real. The rest is just an electron illusion. ---FS
We have to stop looking at the world through our physical eyes. The universe is NOT what we see. It is the quantum world that is real. The rest is just an electron illusion. ---FS
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Richard Hull
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Re: X-ray, Gamma BTI bubble detector
Frank's thoughts mimed my own over the years. This is regarding a possible reduced pressure zone to support at least x-rays within lightning. Nuclear stuff isn't that much greater a stretch in the occassional odd super bolt.
Nature is famous for tricks that our simple mechanistic single thought channel brains can't plumb. We constantly discover cool crap that nature does on the fly. Once we figure it out through careful observation, it is all so painfully obvious. I just will not make claims regarding compex, brissant electrical explosions in or out of air. To the contrary, I will entertain all manner of seemingly impossible ideas from within such torrents of energy.....Then, of course, I will "weigh and consider" in the Baconian tradition.
If we can imagine it, you can bet nature has done it. If we can't imagine it, then nature has only probably done it.
Richard Hull
Nature is famous for tricks that our simple mechanistic single thought channel brains can't plumb. We constantly discover cool crap that nature does on the fly. Once we figure it out through careful observation, it is all so painfully obvious. I just will not make claims regarding compex, brissant electrical explosions in or out of air. To the contrary, I will entertain all manner of seemingly impossible ideas from within such torrents of energy.....Then, of course, I will "weigh and consider" in the Baconian tradition.
If we can imagine it, you can bet nature has done it. If we can't imagine it, then nature has only probably done it.
Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
Re: X-ray, Gamma BTI bubble detector
Frank and Richard - That's an interesting explanation that I too will mull over for a bit longer. The radial outwardly propagating pressure wave and resulting low pressure region behind, is certainly plausible.
What I was focused on, was the fact that during the actual lightning stroke, the actual potential is far lower than the pre-strike potential. With lightning, (as with neon sign transformers), we have the conditions of open circuit voltage at megavolts, and short circuit currents in Kamps. These do not both occur simultaneously.
So when the plasma channel is there, it has extremely low resistance, and thus a very low potential gradient exists along the actual channel, while the stroke current flows. A low pressure region on the interior, would probably be shielded until the arc interrupts. Depending upon the circuit parameters of the stroke channel, cloud to earth capacitance, and etc. , the potential across the channel gap could rise fast enough to cause sufficient charge acceleration for xrays before the gap restrikes. The gamma rays might be a long shot.
Interesting mechanism to ponder, and definitely possible.
Now, how to test this. I'm a bit short of kite string at this particular moment.....
Dave Cooper
What I was focused on, was the fact that during the actual lightning stroke, the actual potential is far lower than the pre-strike potential. With lightning, (as with neon sign transformers), we have the conditions of open circuit voltage at megavolts, and short circuit currents in Kamps. These do not both occur simultaneously.
So when the plasma channel is there, it has extremely low resistance, and thus a very low potential gradient exists along the actual channel, while the stroke current flows. A low pressure region on the interior, would probably be shielded until the arc interrupts. Depending upon the circuit parameters of the stroke channel, cloud to earth capacitance, and etc. , the potential across the channel gap could rise fast enough to cause sufficient charge acceleration for xrays before the gap restrikes. The gamma rays might be a long shot.
Interesting mechanism to ponder, and definitely possible.
Now, how to test this. I'm a bit short of kite string at this particular moment.....
Dave Cooper
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Richard Hull
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Re: X-ray, Gamma BTI bubble detector
Another consideration, is that the cooling and expanding arc channel is often refilled in milliseconds to microseconds with a second, third or more strokes in many lightning strikes. So, the channel is often a conduit for as many as 10 separate multi-kiloamp strokes.
I studied this at length with the giant Tesla systems, like Nemesis in the 90's. I was amazed to discover that the device, as a spark producing entity, had little to do with RF and radio theory but was more successful as a repeated energy source to a hot, attached arc channel. This is the benefit that I gave the Tesla coil building community. I structured the coils around a massive primary inductance, ( a no-no in RF design). Coupled with this, I demanded a massive secondary inductance, as well. I topped all of this with an ungodly, massive, oversized toroidal terminal that dwarfs the secondary coil. It seems that the Q plunges due to all this...and it does, but the device is not about Q if you are after arc length. Instead, it is about energy disappated in air at the output of the device and this demands capacitance.
The tesla coil is not supposed to produce and transmit EM radiation. A good Tesla coil like my 12KW Nemesis operating at 48khz could not be heard on an LF receiver over 6 blocks from the lab!!! A tesla coil, I discovered is not even supposed to achieve maximum voltage to attain maximum spark length! Instead, it is to supply maximized, timely, energy pulses at only moderate voltages so that the arc channel can grow and dissapate energy in air. If I gave one thing to the spark making community, it was the realization that the tesla coil was not about RF theory and proper design by radiomen, but about effective and directed ionization of air through the artifice of maximized losses to same.
As it turned out all that coil winding and quarter wave theory crap that help broadcast radio was just a lot of hooey in making Tesla coils if it was spark you were after. RF elegance was put on its ear as the Tesla coil design maxim clubed its way via resonance and terrible Q's into trading RF output for maximized and efficient, localized losses in air.
An unheard off goal, of course, but just what the tesla coilers were in need of. They just couldn't see the forest for the trees in their quest. They never looked at the physics of gas ionization,......... only proper RF design. Consequently the craft foundered due to wrong headedness and a failure to look at the physical world around the coil where the arcs are made.
I was elated when one coiler in the mid-90s said; "everything about your coils looks "off", but everything about their operation shows them to be spot on". Soon, the community caught on and the best systems today look and peform much as Nemesis.
Richard Hull
I studied this at length with the giant Tesla systems, like Nemesis in the 90's. I was amazed to discover that the device, as a spark producing entity, had little to do with RF and radio theory but was more successful as a repeated energy source to a hot, attached arc channel. This is the benefit that I gave the Tesla coil building community. I structured the coils around a massive primary inductance, ( a no-no in RF design). Coupled with this, I demanded a massive secondary inductance, as well. I topped all of this with an ungodly, massive, oversized toroidal terminal that dwarfs the secondary coil. It seems that the Q plunges due to all this...and it does, but the device is not about Q if you are after arc length. Instead, it is about energy disappated in air at the output of the device and this demands capacitance.
The tesla coil is not supposed to produce and transmit EM radiation. A good Tesla coil like my 12KW Nemesis operating at 48khz could not be heard on an LF receiver over 6 blocks from the lab!!! A tesla coil, I discovered is not even supposed to achieve maximum voltage to attain maximum spark length! Instead, it is to supply maximized, timely, energy pulses at only moderate voltages so that the arc channel can grow and dissapate energy in air. If I gave one thing to the spark making community, it was the realization that the tesla coil was not about RF theory and proper design by radiomen, but about effective and directed ionization of air through the artifice of maximized losses to same.
As it turned out all that coil winding and quarter wave theory crap that help broadcast radio was just a lot of hooey in making Tesla coils if it was spark you were after. RF elegance was put on its ear as the Tesla coil design maxim clubed its way via resonance and terrible Q's into trading RF output for maximized and efficient, localized losses in air.
An unheard off goal, of course, but just what the tesla coilers were in need of. They just couldn't see the forest for the trees in their quest. They never looked at the physics of gas ionization,......... only proper RF design. Consequently the craft foundered due to wrong headedness and a failure to look at the physical world around the coil where the arcs are made.
I was elated when one coiler in the mid-90s said; "everything about your coils looks "off", but everything about their operation shows them to be spot on". Soon, the community caught on and the best systems today look and peform much as Nemesis.
Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
Re: X-ray, Gamma BTI bubble detector
On a side note, there is a theory that lightning could be triggered by a cosmic"ray" event. This has been proposed since most of the experiments trying to measure the ground to cloud potential just prior to a discharge have measured potentials too low to cause an air break-down event. The potentials measure have been in the order of 500kV to 700kV with the "theoretical" required potentials needed are in excess of 1MV.
I am attempting to set up a cosmic "ray" to lightning coincidents detector using the Berkeley style cosmic ray detector with a R2868 UV detector from Hamamatsu. I think I will have to use a second "blind" detector to rule out other events triggering the UV pulse detection. Perhaps I'll have to add a gamma/x-ray detector to the mix as well.
I am attempting to set up a cosmic "ray" to lightning coincidents detector using the Berkeley style cosmic ray detector with a R2868 UV detector from Hamamatsu. I think I will have to use a second "blind" detector to rule out other events triggering the UV pulse detection. Perhaps I'll have to add a gamma/x-ray detector to the mix as well.