3 ms·

Some years ago, an artist-in-residence at Bristol's Physics dept planted fluorescent tubes under overhead power lines, which then glowed due to the field and co

• ChuckMcM 9y ago
  In high school it was a fun geeky thing to do and drive out into the desert where the power lines from Hoover Dam headed over to LA and light up fluorescent bulbs. There is a story, possibly apocryphal, that was told by one of the professors at USC of a guy who lived out there and used a few hundred feet of 12ga wire to build what would essentially be a secondary coil of an air gap transformer to power his shack. I found it interesting but not interesting enough to pursue a career in power engineering :-).
• westbywest 9y ago
  This installation gives a better intuitive sense of field strength, e.g. emissions still strong enough to cause fluorescence dozens of meters away. I'm curious how Sturgeon's visualizations would appear around household appliances with (relatively) high-amperage induction motors like vacuum cleaners.
• userbinator 9y ago
  Depending on the field strength, it can be sufficient to do more than light fluorescent tubes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD2dfMfgkTw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD2dfMfgkTw
• im3w1l 9y ago
  That must be pulling a lot of energy out of the power lines huh? I wonder at what point people start complaining...