🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <76253@ut-emx.uucp> johncobb@ut-emx.cc.utexas.edu (John W. Cobb) writes:
>In article <1085@kepler1.rentec.com>, andrew@rentec.com (Andrew
>Mullhaupt) writes:
>|>You hear lightning on AM radio so it isn't just DC, right? It's pretty broad
>|>band, since you can get it all over the spectrum. So it's perhaps true that
>|>initially the spark crosses the gap in some directional sense, there's a lot
>|>of AC in a lightning strike.
>|>
>Whoa, Hold on there lil' pardner. What's the spectrum of a dirac 
>delta-function? Would you call a spike AC or DC? How about a step function?
>Well just mull that around a'bit and then mosey'n back with'n your'n
>answer


When I say there's AC I mean it. You show me a pulse of DC with no high
frequencies (i.e. AC component) and I'll show you a long, long pulse.

However, lab experiments with sparks actually show significant AC - i.e.
many cycles - because there is effectively a resistor and a capacitor in
the picture.

Later,
Andrew Mullhaupt