Talk:Atmospheric electricity

modification

I think the part discussing the conductivity of the atmosphere needs modification. It makes an unqualified assertion that conductivity increases exponentially with altitude. This may be true within a certain distance regime, however it is not true in general. Those who work with vacuum systems are aware that there is a range of pressures in which the atmosphere is especially easy to ionize. I believe that it is the onset of this pressure range that corresponds to the exponential increase with altitude.

However, past some altitude the atmosphere will be so rarefied that the conductivity will again drop -- a vacuum is not a good conductor. Another point is that there is no upper bound to the atmosphere. The density of the gas drops exponentially but never reaches zero.

I don't have time to make changes, but hopefully this feedback is useful to someone.

Justin Hannigan

I'll try to work that in, if i can. Thanks for the information. J. D. Redding 23:50, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Patents

In the United States Patent Office classification, the main classification is 310/308 Electrical Generator or Motor / Charge accumulating. Other applicable classes regarding atmospheric electricity include:

• 307/149 Electrical Transmission or interconnection systems / Miscellaneous Systems
• 320/166 Electricity: Battery of Capacitor Charging or Discharging / Capacitor Charging or Discharging
• 361/212 Electricity: Electrical Systems and Devices / Discharging or Preventing accumulation of Electric Charge(e.g., Static Electricity)
• 174/6 Electricity: Conductors and Insulators / Earth Grounds
• 174/2 Electricity: Conductors and Insulators / Lightning Protection

Source: United States Patent Office classification system - Classification Definitions, June 30, 2000.

Patents related to atmospheric electricity

American

• Vion, U.S. patent 28,793, "Improved method of using atmospheric electricity", June 1860.
• Ward, U.S. patent 126,356, "Improvement in collecting electricity for telegraphing", using towers to collect atmospheric electricity, April 1872.
• Loomis, U.S. patent 129,971, "Improvement in telegraphing" "without the aid of wires or artificial batteries", Jul. 1872.
• Palencsar, U.S. patent 674,427, "Apparatus for collecting atmospheric electricity" using a balloon, May 1901.
• Pennock, U.S. patent 911,260, "Apparatus for collecting atmospheric electricity", using one or more balloons, Feb. 1909.
• Pennock, U.S. patent 1,014,719, "Apparatus for collecting electrical energy", Jan. 1912.
• Plauson, U.S. patent 1,540,998, "Conversion of atmospheric electric energy". Jun. 1925.
• Britten, U.S. patent 1,826,727, "Radio apparatus" "to economize and conserve the current, and to regulate and clarify the tone", Oct. 31, 1931.
• Crump, U.S. patent 2,813,242, "Powering electrical devices with energy attracted from the atmosphere" using transistor circuits, Nov. 12, 1957.
• Ruhnke, U.S. patent 3,273,066, "Apparatus for detecting changes in the atmospheric electric field", Sep. 1966.
• Smith, U.S. patent 3,205,381, "Ionospheric battery", March, 1962.
• Kasemir, U.S. patent 3,458,805, "Electric field meter having a pair of rotating electrodes", Jul. 1969.
• Winn, et al., U.S. patent 4,025,913, " Electrical field sensing and transmitting apparatus", May. 1977.
• Colombo, et al., U.S. patent 4,097,010, " Satellite connected by means of a long (100 km) tether to a powered spacecraft", Jun. 1978.
• Carpenter, Jr., U.S. patent 4,180,698, " System and equipment for atmospherics conditioning", Dec. 1979.
• Shoulders, U.S. patent 5,018,180, " Energy conversion using high charge density", May 1991 .
• Shoulders, U.S. patent 5,123,039, " Energy conversion using high charge density", Jun. 1992.
• Mims, U.S. patent 5,367,245, " Assembly for the induction of lightning into a superconducting magnetic energy storage system", Nov. 1994.

Other

• Traun's Forschungs laboratorium, GB157263

J. D. Redding 18:35, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Rewrite needed

A real 18th century flavor to the descriptions here...needs a rewrite. I don't think "atmospheric electricity" is a very modern classification at all, and we have a lot of really elderly creaky references here. --Wtshymanski (talk) 01:10, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

In my opinion this is a shameful and misleading article, cobbled from old references to antique instruments such as "gold leaf electroscope" as a method of measuring electric charge. Rather than being edited, this article needs to be replaced by one that is reasonably up-to-date and competently written. it's very existence reflects badly on Wiki! Edfredkin (talk) 06:19, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I thoroughly agree that this article is thoroughly inconsistent in its presentation of *very* historical theories and exceedingly old data intermixed with what one assumes to be modern content. As a general encyclopedic page, most of the historical references are unnecessary. Only that which is generally accepted current science should be presented outside a specific and limited **History** section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Justinchudgar (talk • contribs) 05:52, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

I added a cleanup tag. The article is obfuscatingly verbose, and indeed uses a lot of obsolete 19th century knowledge. --Centzon (talk) 21:57, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

I've taken a hatchet to bits of this article, but there's still lots left to be checked and updated. Don't make me do all of it! --Heron (talk) 21:16, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

100 Volts per Metre?!

That doesn't sound right... If it was like that, wouldn't an exposed wire about a metre long hanging vertically shock anyone that touch it? --TiagoTiago (talk) 14:40, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

No, because as a good conductor, there will be no potential difference between the ends. The presence of a good conductor in an electric field distorts the field pattern. The figure quoted is in the absence of any conducting element. —BillC ^talk 16:38, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, not really so. If the potential difference between the two ends of the cunductor is 100 volts (think 0 at one end 100 at the other)then the conductor will have a surface voltage of 50 volts. The reason you don't get a shock is that the effective source impedance is greater than 10,000 megOhms (actual value depends on humidity and other factors). So there is essentially no current sufficient to deliver a shock. Much longer wires will sometimes produce a spark that can be easily felt. However even here it is the spark (and heat shock wave + noise "splat") that you feel, not the current. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Maleny Neil (talk • contribs) 00:47, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Scope

The scope of the article is unclear. "Atmospheric electricity" can be interpreted in a broad sense to include all electromagnetic phenomena that take place in the atmosphere, or in a much narrower sense, meaning just the global atmospheric electrical circuit (GAEC), or somewhere in between. At this point, the article is written in such a way that it is unclear what exactly is being discussed.

I think there are three viable purposes for this article:

1. An overview page for all atmospheric electrical phenomena, little more than a list of phenomena with links to their respective main pages;
2. An article about the history of research into atmospheric electricity, although this is probably sufficiently covered by the dedicated article;
3. An article about the GAEC.

So my proposal is this: to reduce this article to a quick overview of all atmospheric electrical phenomena, and create a new article dedicated to GAEC. Parts of the current article can be integrated in other articles as applicable (GAEC, history of electromagnetism, etc.).

What do you think? Good/bad, remarks, alternatives? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Centzon (talk • contribs) 00:19, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Breaking up the article is a horrible idea. Atmospheric electricity includes all electromagnetic phenomena that take place in the atmosphere.

If this is pushed through, see Wikipedia:Splitting for refactoring an article into child or sister articles. --J. D. Redding 15:53, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and created a separate article for the global atmospheric electrical circuit. I'm hoping to expand that article and at the same time make this one a bit clearer. --Centzon (talk) 21:41, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Good work. I'm with you, and I've started to clean up this article. I think the best way forward is to write better articles with a more modern viewpoint, so that this article will gradually shrink to an overview, possibly a purely historical one. Now I think of it, all the stuff about lightning is probably covered elsewhere so could be removed too. --Heron (talk) 21:20, 7 June 2014 (UTC)