What the hell did I blow up this time? The answer and now another question

[lrickert at covad.net]

10/30/02 8:36:34, Robert Myers <robert at s-cars.org> wrote:

>You are missing the scientific fact that an arc is more easily produced at
>low gas pressure than at high gas pressure.

this is nicely demonstrated by high voltage spark gap switches. These consist of
two electrodes in a pressurized chamber. You put in a know gas (N2 or something
else such as SF6 (sulfur hexafluoride) at a know pressure and they will arch at
a specific voltage you pull off of a table given the gap. I played with them
while working at a plasma physics fusion research lab (lots of high voltages
there)

Luke