Reply To: T-shirt designers unite and take over

[nuke@ripnet.com]

This is a note about an amateur physics experiment that requires an explanation. It might have some relevance.
Let one take a 6 cm thermometer bore and fill it with distilled water and place it between lead-tipped nickel wire electrodes. Let one lead-tipped nickel electrode almost touch one end of the thermometer (1cm gap) and the other actually touch it. A third lead-tipped electrode grounded to the touching electrode forms a single loop around the end of the thermometer that is near the almost touching electrode. This third electrode, after winding around the thermometer, points in the direction of the gap and lies against the glass. Allow a 10,000 V discharge from a 3 mF high-voltage capacitor to jump the 1 cm gap. I can’t remember polarity. Without the third electrode no discharge is possible. The discharge proceeds through the thermometer bore and stinging rays will be felt if one’s hand is near even through leather gloves. The thermometer will shatter as if a shock wave went through it.
This experiment was done a few years ago. I am now having cardiac arrhythmias, so now I’m tossing this experiment out for discussion. It was an experiment trying to make sense of two historical items. At Catal Hüyük a block of hard stone has a hole bored in it finer than the thinnest needle (The Eternal Man, Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier, 1972, ISBN 0 285 62057 6, Page 222). Then there is the strange preoccupation with lead by the alchemists.