Photographer captures electricity

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/pl_arts_sugimoto/all/1

by prat • 17 years ago

64 11 17 years ago

jacquesm3• 17 years ago

Pretty sparks!

As a kid I got my hands on a HV transformer from a rooftop light installation.

Two pieces of curved wires attached to the terminals, touch the base between the wires with a hammer and a spark would ride up the curve.

As soon as the spark extinguished that would temporarily excite the coil to an even higher voltage because of the circuit breaking, if you set it up just so that would be enough to jump the gap between the two wires at the bottom and the cycle would repeat.

Friggin' dangerous but lots of fun.

jazzychad• 17 years ago

Sounds like a Jacob's Ladder or some variant thereof. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qh-Tt09IC8M

My grandfather built one in his basement. It zapped him once and sent him clear across the room.

theblackbox• 17 years ago

Ha, that reminded me of one of my heros: Michio Kaku. He built a particle accelerator in his basement when he was a teenager and wiped out every transformer in his neighbourhood! Another amazingly reckless Japanese guy who inspires from the danger of the edge (he now builds infinite improbability drives for the galactic elite).

cool-RR• 17 years ago

"Got my hands on" is not the best expression to use when talking about electrical equipment :)

jacquesm3• 17 years ago

I managed to avoid that while it was switched on.

If my mom had known what I was up to with that thing it would have been gone in a heartbeat.

It's a small miracle I got this old anyway, considering the fact that I chopped the top of a BLX15 with a dremel to see what it looks like inside.

I was young, stupid and apparently very lucky.

RevRal• 17 years ago

Again with those confounded fractals.

It's crazy how organic and of the natural world these look.

kuda• 17 years ago

I'd like to thank the submitter for linking to the article where the entire gallery was on one page instead of ten.

kingkongreveng_• 17 years ago

I couldn't figure out what exactly he did from the article. Set black and white photo paper on top a metal table and fire up a van de graaff?

tomkinstinch• 17 years ago

For more information, this Wikipedia page is helpful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lichtenberg_figure

Photographer captures electricity

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