Slice of Science · 2:23pm Jun 14th, 2015
Those things are magic! I've had so much fun with them. You put one on a table at a science festival, turn it on, and it radiates a powerful magic which draws young children to your stall and makes them want to learn about science. And they stay there mesmerized while you talk about electromagnetic waves until they are finally dragged away by their parents.
The Doctor has an unusally impressive model, which seems to function both as a plasma ball—a sphere filled with low pressure gas, in which a high frequency alternating voltage creates colorful filaments of plasma, which move around due to thermal currents in the gas and are drawn towards a large conducting body (say, a hoof touching the glass)—but at the same time it also generates a very high static potential like a van-de-Graaff generator, so that when you touch it it makes your hairs stand on end as the charge is transferred to the ends of the hairs, which all repel each other. That is really awesome. Not quite sure how he achieves both things at the same time.
Altogether that was a lovely episode which makes me want to give everyone involved in making the show a big hug. We love you too.
And another screenful of equations! I love it when they do that. Now I can write another blog post on Doctor Hooves analysis of hook bowling.
Awesome!
The episode is full of so many EasterEggs. The Equations are mostly force-vectors. It also has apes pretending to be equines and Miss Octavia Melody and Miss Vinyl "DJ Pon3" Scratch jump over a literal shark. Mister Steven Magnet performed fabulously.
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You've got me wondering now. Can you remember any details of the plasma balls you have played with? The ones I've used didn't raise any hairs, but there may be other types which can do it. The current which produces the plasma filaments is alternating, and moving back and forth far to quickly to produce a charge build up. But maybe there is another mechanism which can lead to static on the outside of the glass... But could that be as effective as the van de Graff kits used to produce the classic wild hair images (which produce 50,000-150,000V)?
3151292 The way I remember it all those balls produce a little charge to make your hair do weird things, but nothing like that. Maybe it's actually a pegasus thing? Lightning and pegasi clearly get along better than humans and lightning. Might even explain the doctor's reaction too since he's standing next to Ditzy. You know other than it being a cartoon obviously.
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I also seem to recall having some minor effect on my hair with those things, but not as much as Ms. Hooves is experiencing. I think that
3153192 (what an appropriate name) is on the right track: it probably has to do with how pegasi can manipulate storm clouds and lightning.
You asked how he made a dual Plasma ball and Van-De-Graaff Generator all in one, and I may have an idea. Although we know this was probably just a visual gag by the animators, when thinking about it seriously, it may be possible!
readtiger.com/img/wkp/en/Van_de_Graaff_Generator.svg
using the above diagram for reference, and the image you posted, we can figure out a few things.
#1: the base could easily contain the belt and all other necessary components below the sphere
#2: The center of the plasma ball seems to be acting as the upper electrode.
#3: The clear outer shell has to be conductive, meaning that it is either some form of transparent alloy, or some kind of glass that was made conductive, as if metal was added to it in the glass making process.
and #4: this is where it gets interesting. as we can see, the upper electrode has to make contact with the outer sphere in order to generate/transfer the charge. thus, given the picture of Derpy above, we must conclude that the plasma itself is being used to carry that charge, as opposed to a solid piece of metal.
So it is in fact, entirely plausible that Dr. Whooves could have created this, especially with his apparent "Centuries" of scientific knowledge!
Either that, or I'm overthinking this