"Now it's not obvious to most people how this acceleration mechanism of using a wave to accelerate particles actually works. So I have a little demonstration... of an everyday example where I can use a wave to accelerate some particles. This is just an ordinary fluorescent tube that you have in the ceiling... Over here I have a plasma ball which has a 30 kHz oscillating AC voltage supply. So there's a voltage, it's a couple of kilovolts that's going up and down, up and down, up and down in the center of that thing, 30,000 times a second. And because of that, out of the plasma ball... comes an electromagnetic wave that's traveling... through space. So move towards the plasma ball and point the fluorescent tube toward the plasma ball. [It lights up] ...So actually if you move it away, notice that it's still on. Now a lot of people show this demonstration with the fluorescent tube touching the plasma ball and say that it's something about completing a circuit... It's not. It's the electromagnetic wave that's coming out... which is traveling through the fluorescent tube, exciting the electrons inside. ...you know how a fluorescent tube works."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Science authorsUniversity of Oxford alumniPhysicists from AustraliaEducators from AustraliaWomen scientists from Australia
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
10:53
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Suzie_Sheehy
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Suzie Sheehy
102 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Suzie Sheehy →
Related Quotes
"That's only one particle accelerator. There are actually over 26,000 of them in the world."
"I'll tell you very briefly how they work. ...The first thing we need is some ...s, or even atoms themselves perhaps."
"Four different types of particles: electrons, s, s and gold atoms. ...Can anyone suggest which one you can't put in a…"
"Now there's another one... that might not have an electric charge... The gold atom, yes. Can anyone suggest a way to …"
"The next thing we want to do with those particles is to give them some energy. That's the basics of how an accelerato…"
"Building up charge, actually building up , is the key to giving particles energy in a particle accelerator. ...Now so…"
"I have a demonstration... which is the simplest particle accelerator I could make.... in a giant salad bowl. ...[W]he…"
"Why couldn't you put your pet in a particle accelerator? ...It doesn't have an electric charge. ...He's slightly too …"
"What I'm going to do is suck out all of the air out of this container and see what happens to marshmallow man, or ind…"
"What is a particle accelerator? ...This is the ...the world's biggest particle accelerator. It's 27 kilometers in cir…"