Gzzzzzt! March 13, 2006
Posted by gordonwatts in physics, university.trackback
One of the cool things about teaching physics is the demos we get to do. On the last day of class (Friday) I did the Tesla coil. This thing wraps up many of the concepts we’ve been playing with over the last 2 months: Inductors, Transformers, Capacitors, Resistors, and putting it all together in a rather specticular fasion. I’ve a few more pictures on my flickr account. One component — the capacitor and spark-gap chamber — we found in a catalog dated back to 1919 — the bits of this demo are old!!
There is a great web page that describes how a tesla coil works with a cool animated gif. Wikipedia also has a history (though not very well written).
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Beautiful pictures of the spark! I love “old” technology.
Your Flickr says: all rights reserved. Can the pictures be used on educational weblogs (i.e. mine?).