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From: davidl@tekig5.UUCP (David Levadie)
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Ball lightening
Message-ID: <56@tekig5.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 26-Mar-85 22:25:04 EST
Article-I.D.: tekig5.56
Posted: Tue Mar 26 22:25:04 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 28-Mar-85 23:56:32 EST
Organization: Tektronix, Beaverton OR
Lines: 16

I'm sure this subject has been beaten to death in here, but it didn't
happen on my watch, so...

Is there any physics explaining ball lightening?  (I've heard NO from
a variety of sources).  Somebody recently claimed that Maxwell's equations
won't allow for a spherical electromagnetic field, though they weren't
very explicit.  More recently I heard that someone has begun
research into ball lightening as a possible containment mechanism for
nuclear fusion, an idea whiich occured to me some time ago.  This person
claims that an explanation could be derived from postulating a toroidal
plasma with a currrent circulating helically around the toroid.  the
claim was that Tokamak generators use such a field to create the
"magnetic bottle" for plasma containment.  Supposedly, somebody is
doing 3D field modeling to explore this, using a Cray somethingorother.

?