why does a car battery spark

A little "science fair" motor made from a coil of wire and paper clips easily proves that sparks can occur using an AAA.

That's the coil soldered on each side to an "axle" of stiff bare copper wire. The "axle" sits in the U of unfolded papers clip at each end. The paper clips are screwed to a block of wood. A permanent magnet is positioned below the coil, and the battery is connected to each paper clip. Give it a push to get it going, and it spins nicely.

I've see the sparcs/arcs, but even if you don't see them, you can see the burn marks on the U pieces and the "axle" after it has run a while, so you know there had to be sparks. Darn thing works _because_ the "axle" bounces in the U ends, making and breaking the circuit - and causing the sparks.

Ed

Did you collect ANY of the debris flung outward by the spark target location?

If not, then you are too stupid to even know what proper experimental observation is, much less what performing it properly entails.

through an insulating material.

This places the source in question.

The onset of current flow in ANY circuit is an instantaneous catastrophic event that is some cases is VERY catastrophic. If it takes place through air, the event can be observed in many cases.

This is why many circuits fail at the initiation of power to the circuit, and also why "soft start" circuitry was designed and implemented.

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With eyes closed, I have seen what appears to be points of light, also in a completely dark room. I think it is a nervous thing similar to the occasional "ringing in the ears" phenomena that many if not most humans hear at times.

You can also watch a stock ticker scroll on TV, or the road pass under your bike, and then look at a matte surface (the sky) and see things continue to scroll as your brain re-trained itself to handle the scrolling "scenery" (or segment thereof for the stocks), it can be observed while it resets back to normal "screen refresh" mode. A weird phenomena, in my view.

We can probably see less than a 100 photon packet after many hours of darkness and acclamation to it.

That is why I have most of you shitheads pegged to a tee.

Bwuahahahahahahahha!

Being a motor, however, we deal with back EMFs, but yes, I have seen sparks on shorted standard cells (at the moment of the short).

You're far worse than the slime, and it's a travesty that you take the name of the great FZ in vain.

You're an idiot.

You're an imbecile. So there!

What do you do?

John

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I have pretty intense phosphenes, basically a continuous light show in the dark.

It's fairly dramatic and has interesting patterns, but isn't a bother and doesn't seem to impair my night vision. I also get migraine auras, intense light shows that temporarily impair my vision (triggered by food allergies maybe?) which are visually fun; I get the aura once or twice a year maybe, but without the headache, which is unusual.

Swimmers, too. Has anybody figured them out?

I think that's common.

I've got to try the green LED thing and calculate the minimum preceptable CW power level. I wonder is that's more or less power than is audible?

John

It took me about two of his posts to filter him - now the only time I have to see his crap is when the trollfeeders come out to play. ;-)

They (the trollfeeders) apparently find it fun - I tried it a couple of times, but I got bored with it, because it doesn't seem to accomplish much. :-/

Cheers! Rich

Well, it does emerge from the Root Chakra. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

I saw Mr. Wizard do that once. ;-)

Many many years ago, in "Ripley's Believe it or Not" or some equivalent publication, there was a story that claimed that a boxcar full of steel wool was set on fire by snow.

The snow got into the cracks between the car's timbers and started oxidizing the steel wool, causing it to heat, igniting the whole batch.

But I haven't been able to verify or refute this - I read about it about a half-century ago.

Cheers! Rich

I can't name names, but apparently everybody here except the two or three that are maintaining that it won't.

Thanks, Rich

I've heard that those are "sintillations" cosmic rays going through your vitreous humour, releasing photons when they're intercepted by your eye molecules.

Or they could be your retina responding to the cosmic rays themselves.

Howcome you guys don't snip?

Cheers! Rich

When I was in South Korea, a couple of friends and I used to take the train here and there. These trains didn't have a caboose, so you could go to the tail end of the last car, sit on the floor with our feet dangling over the tracks, and watch the scenery recede.

When the train stops, everything in the world starts coming right at you! It's way cool, especially if you've had an herbal cigarette or two. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

Carl & Jerry once did something like this. They had run their car into a ditch and couldn't get it out, and the nearest town was many miles away, and there was no traffic on that road at the time. But, being Carl and Jerry, they had some hook-up wire on hand, so they pulled out the coil wire, stuck in a piece of hook-up wire, and strung about 25 feet of it on the ground; the they took a fingernail file, connected it to the coil primary, and scratched it with a wire conected to +12. (or something like that.)

He then dragged the wire across the fingernail file, scratching out "SOS" in Morse Code. Before too long, somebody came to the rescue.

Of course, it was fiction, but it's entirely plausible.

Cheers! Rich