Collaborate Disseminate
Down here at the bottom of our ocean of air, it’s easy to get complacent about the hazards our universe presents. We feel safe from the dangers of the vacuum …read more Continue reading Catching The BOAT: Gamma-Ray Bursts and The Brightest of All Time
Join us on Wednesday, September 23 at noon Pacific for the Into the Plasmaverse Hack Chat with Jay Bowles!
Most kids catch on to the fact that matter can exist in three states — solid, liquid, and gas — pretty early in life, usually after playing in the snow a …read more
Have you ever had a good, deep breath of the air near a waterfall, or perhaps after a thunderstorm? That unmistakably fresh smell is due to ionized air, specifically negative ions, and many are the claims concerning their health benefits. A minor industry has sprung up to capitalize on the …read more
One of the features that made Scientific American magazine great was a column called “The Amateur Scientist.” Every month, readers were treated to experiments that could be done at home, or some scientific apparatus that could be built on the cheap. Luckily, [Ben Krasnow]’s fans remember the series and urged …read more
It’s basically a lightsaber. Except smaller. And with an invisible blade. And cold to the touch. But other than that, this homebrew cold plasma torch (YouTube, embedded below) is just like the Jedi’s choice in elegant weaponry.
Perhaps we shouldn’t kid [Justin] given how hard he worked on this project …read more
Continue reading Cold Plasma Torch Produces a Cleansing Flame that Never Consumes
It’s not hard to detect meteors: go outside on a clear night in a dark place and you’re bound to see one eventually. But visible light detection is limiting, and knowing that meteors leave a trail of ions means radio detection is possible. That’s what’s behind this attempt to map meteor trails using broadcast signals, which so far hasn’t yielded great results.
The fact that meteor trails reflect radio signals is well-known; hams use “meteor bounce” to make long-distance contacts all the time. And using commercial FM broadcast signals to map meteor activity isn’t new, either — we’ve covered the …read more
Continue reading Fail of the Week: Tracking Meteors with Weather Radio
Fair warning: [Justin Atkin]’s video on how to make plasma, fusors, and magnetrons is a bit long. But it’s worth watching because he’s laying a foundation for a series of experiments with plasma, which looks like it will be a lot of fun.
After a nice primer on the physics of plasma, [Justin] goes into some detail about the basic tools of the trade: high voltage and high vacuum. A couple of scrap microwave oven transformers, a bridge rectifier, and a capacitor provide the 2000 volts DC output needed. It’s a workable setup, but we’ll take issue with the incredibly …read more
