Niin, Tesla aikanaan keksi mielestään uuden ja erikoisen ilmiön juurikin näistä sähköpurkauksista, siitä lisää alla, onkohan tämä ilmiö jossain selitetty, siis onkohan aiheesta tullut jonkun muun taholta lisä selvityksiä, vai onko nyt käynyt niin ettei näitä Teslan havaintoja olla edes toisinnettu?
http://www.luminet.net/~wenonah/new/tesla.htmTesla's New York laboratories had several sections. This complex was arranged as a multi-level gallery, providing a complete research and production facility. Tesla fabricated several of his large transformers and generators in the lower floors, where the machine shops of this building were housed. The upper floors contained his private research laboratories. He had attracted a loyal staff of technicians. Of all these, Kolman Czito was a trusted friend who would stand by Tesla for the remainder of his life. Czito was the machine shop foreman in each of Tesla's New York laboratories.
Tesla observed that instantaneous applications of either direct or alternating current to lines often caused explosive effects. While these had obvious practical applications in improvement and safety, Tesla was seized by certain peculiar aspects of the phenomenon. He had observed these powerful blasts when knife-switches were quickly closed and opened in his Polyphase System. Switch terminals were often blasted to pieces when the speed of the switchman matched the current phase.
Tesla assessed the situation very accurately. Suddenly applied currents will stress conductors both electrically and mechanically. When the speed of the switch-action is brief enough, and the power reaches a sufficiently high crescendo, the effects are not unlike a miniature lightning stroke. Electricity initially heats the wire, bringing it to vapor point. The continual application of current then blasts the wire apart by electrostatic repulsion. But was this mechanistic explanation responsible for every part of the phenomenon?
The most refractory metals were said to be vaporized by such electrical blasts. Others had used this phenomenon to generate tiny granular diamonds. Yes, there were other aspects about this violent impulse phenomenon, which tantalized him. Sufficiently intrigued, he developed a small lightning "generator" consisting of a high voltage dynamo and small capacitor storage bank. His idea was to blast sections of wire with lightning-like currents. He wanted to observe the mechanically explosive effects, which wires sustain under sudden high-powered electrifications.
Instantaneous applications of high current and high voltage could literally convert thin wires into vapor. Charged to high direct current potentials, his capacitors were allowed to discharge across a section of thin wire. Tesla configured his test apparatus to eliminate all possible current alternations. The application of a single switch contact would here produce a single, explosive electrical surge: a direct current impulse resembling lightning. At first Tesla hand-operated the system, manually snapping a heavy knife switch on and off. This became less favorable as the dynamo voltages were deliberately increased.
He quickly closed the large knife switch held in his gloved hand. Bang! The wire exploded. But as it did so, Tesla was stung by a pressure blast of needle-like penetrations. Closing the dynamo down, he rubbed his face, neck, arms, chest, and hands. The irritation was distinct. He thought while the dynamo whirred down to a slow spin. The blast was powerful. He must have been sprayed by hot metal droplets as small as smoke particles. Though he examined his person, he fortunately found no wounds. No evidence of the stinging blast, which he so powerful felt.
Placing a large glass plate between himself and the exploding wire, he performed the test again. Bang! The wire again turned to vapor...but the pressured stinging effect was still felt. But, what was this? How were these stinging effects able to penetrate the glass plate? Now he was not sure whether he was experiencing a pressure effect or an electrical one. The glass would have screened any mechanical shrapnel, but would not appreciably shield any electrical effects.
Through careful isolation of each experimental component, Tesla gradually realized that he was observing a very rare electrical phenomenon. Each "bang" produced the same unexpected shock response in Tesla, while exploding small wire sections into vapor. The instantaneous burst produced strange effects never observed with alternating currents. The painful shocking sensation appeared each time he closed or opened the switch. These sudden shock currents were IMPULSES, not alternations. What surprised him was the fact that these needle-like shocks were able to reach him from a distance: he was standing almost ten feet from the discharge site!
These electrical irritations expanded out of the wire in all directions and filled the room in a mystifying manner. He had never before observed such an effect. He thought that the hot metal vapor might be acting as a "carrier" for the electrical charges. This would explain the strong pressure wave accompanied by the sensation of electrical shock. He utilized longer wires. When the discharge wire was resistive enough, no explosion could occur.
Wire in place, the dynamo whirred at a slower speed. He threw the switch for a brief instant, and was again caught off guard by the stinging pressure wave! The effect persisted despite the absence of an explosive conductor. Here was a genuine mystery. Hot vapor was not available to "carry" high voltage charges throughout the room. No charge carriers could be cited in this instance to explain the stinging nature of the pressure wave. So what was happening here?
The pressure wave was sharp and strong, like a miniature thunderclap. It felt strangely "electrical" when the dynamo voltage was sufficiently high. In fact, it was uncomfortably penetrating when the dynamo voltage was raised beyond certain thresholds. It became clear that these pressure waves might be electrified. Electrified sound waves. Such a phenomenon would not be unexpected when high voltages were used. Perhaps he was fortunate enough to observe the rare phenomenon for the first time.
He asked questions. How and why did the charge jump out of the line in this strange manner? Here was a phenomenon, which was not described in any of the texts with which he was familiar. And he knew every written thing on electricity. Thinking that he was the victim of some subtle, and possibly deadly short circuit, he rigorously examined the circuit design. Though he searched, he could find no electrical leakages. There were simply no paths for any possible corona effects to find their way back into the switching terminal, which he held.
Deciding to better insulate the arrangement in order that all possible line leakages could be eradicated, he again attempted the experiment. The knife switch rapidly closed and opened, he again felt the unpleasant shock just as painfully as before. Right through the glass shield! Now he was perplexed. Desiring total distance from the apparatus, he modified the system once more by making it "automatic".
He could freely walk around the room during the test. He could hold the shield or simply walk without it. A small rotary spark switch was arranged in place of the hand-held knife switch. The rotary switch was arranged to interrupt the dynamo current in slow, successive intervals. The system was actuated, the motor switch cranked it contacts slowly. Snap ... snap ... snap ... each contact produced the very same room-filling irritation.
This time it was most intense. Tesla could not get away from the shocks, regardless of his distance from the apparatus across his considerably large gallery hall. He scarcely could get near enough to deactivate the rotating switch. From what he was able to painfully observe, thin sparks of a bright blue-white color stood straight out of the line with each electrical contact.
The shock effects were felt far beyond the visible spark terminations. This seemed to indicate that their potential was far greater than the voltage applied to the line. A paradox! The dynamo charge was supplied at a tension of fifteen thousand volts, yet the stinging sparks were characteristics of electrostatic discharges exceeding some two hundred fifty thousand volts. Somehow this input current was being transformed into a much higher voltage by an unknown process. No natural explanation could be found. No scientific explanation sufficed. There was simply not enough data on the phenomenon for an answer. And Tesla knew that this was no ordinary phenomenon. Somewhere in the heart of this activity was a deep natural secret. Secrets of this kind always opened humanity into new revolutions.
Tesla considered this strange voltage multiplying effect from several viewpoints. The problem centered around the fact that there was no magnetic induction taking place. Transformers raise or lower voltage when current is changing. Here were impulses. Change was happening during the impulse. But there was no transformer in the circuit. No wires were close enough for magnetic inductions to take place. Without magnetic induction, there could theoretically be no transformation effect. No conversion from low to high voltage at all. Yet, each switch snap brought both the radiating blue-white sparks and their painful sting.
# IMPULSES
Tesla noted that the strange sparks were more like electrostatic discharges. If the sparks had been direct current arcs reaching from the test line, he would surely have been killed with the very first close of the switch. The physical pressure and stinging pain of these sparks across such distances could not be explained. This phenomenon had never been reported by those who should have seen and felt its activities.
Tesla gradually came to the conclusion that the shock effect was something new, something never before observed. He further concluded that the effect was never seen before because no one had ever constructed such a powerful impulse generator. No one had ever reported the phenomenon be cause no one had ever generated the phenomenon. Tesla once envisioned a vortex of pure energy while looking into a sunset. The result of this great Providential vision was Polyphase current. A true revelation. But this, this was an original discovery found through an accident. It was an empirical discovery of enormous significance. Here was a new electrical force, an utterly new species of electrical force, which should have been incorporated into the electrical equations of James Clerk Maxwell. Surprisingly, it was not.
Tesla now questioned his own knowledge. He questioned the foundations on which he had placed so much confidence in the last several years. Maxwell was the "rule and measure" by which all of Tesla's Polyphase generators had been constructed. Tesla penetrated the validity of Maxwell's mathematical method. It was well known that Maxwell had derived his mathematical descriptions of electromagnetic induction from a great collection of available electrical phenomena. Perhaps he had not studied enough of the phenomena while doing so.
Perhaps newer phenomena had not been discovered, and were therefore unavailable to Maxwell for consideration. How was Maxwell justified in stating his equations as "final"? In deriving the laws of electromagnetic induction, Maxwell had imposed his own "selection process" when deciding which electrical effects were the "basic ones". There were innumerable electrical phenomena, which had been observed since the eighteenth century. Maxwell had difficulty selecting what he considered to be "the most fundamental" induction effects from the start. The selection process was purely arbitrary. After having "decided" which induction effects were "the most fundamental", Maxwell then reduced these selected cases and described them mathematically. His hope was to simplify matters for engineers who were designing new electrical machines. The results were producing "prejudicial" responses in engineers who could not bear the thought of any variations from the "standard". Tesla had experienced this kind of thematic propaganda before, when he was a student. The quantitative wave of blindness was catching up with him.
Tesla and others knew very well that there were strange and anomalous forms of electromagnetic induction, which were constantly, and accidentally being observed. These seemed to vary as the experimental apparatus varied. New electrical force discoveries were a regular feature of every Nature Magazine issue. Adamant in the confidence that all electrical phenomena had been both observed and mathematically described, academicians would be very slow to accept Tesla's claims.
But this academic sloth is not what bothered Tesla. He had already found adequate compensation for his superior knowledge in the world of industry. Tesla, now in possession of an effect, which was not predicted by Maxwell, began to question his own knowledge. Had he become a "mechanist", the very thing which he reviled when a student? Empirical fact contradicted what that upon he based his whole life's work. Goethe taught that nature leads humanity.
The choice was clear: accept the empirical evidence and reject the conventional theory. For a time he struggled with a way to "derive" the shock effect phenomenon by mathematically wrestling "validity" from Maxwell's equations ... but could not. A new electrical principle had been revealed. Tesla would take this, as he did the magnetic vortex, and from it weave a new world.
What had historically taken place was indeed unfortunate. Had Maxwell lived after Tesla's accidental discovery, then the effect might have been included in the laws. Of course, we have to assume that Maxwell would have "chosen" the phenomenon among those, which he considered "fundamental".
There was no other way to see his new discovery now. Empirical fact contradicted theoretical base. Tesla was compelled to follow. The result was an epiphany, which changed Tesla's inventive course. For the remainder of his life he would make scientific assertions, which few could believe, and fewer yet would reproduce. There yet exist several reproducible electrical phenomena, which cannot be predicted by Maxwell. They continually appear whenever adventuresome experimenters make accidental observations.
Huomioikaa IMPULSES!