http://www.capturedlightning.com/frames/shrinkergallery.html this company manufactures and sells lightning, captured in acrylic blocks as well as shrinks coins using intense magnetic forces...though of no numismatic importance, thought it was interesting along the same vein as those "irradiated" dimes of the 50's and 60's
The “lightning trees” are called Lichtenberg Figures. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lichtenberg_figure I’m a physicist who works on linear accelerators and have had the opportunity to make some of these before removing some equipment. Mine are crude. They can happen in nature with a real lightning bolt or even downed power line:
There is a page linked in the website in the OP that explains the coin shrinkage: high-velocity electromagnetic forming. Fascinating. “A shrunken coin weighs exactly the same as it did before shrinking. As the coin's diameter shrinks, it becomes correspondingly thicker, but its volume and density remain the same.”
When I first learned about this, I was all hot to try it myself, until I discovered: 1) The capacitors I have on hand won't work at all, and the ones that do work are furniture-sized (weighing hundreds of pounds) and cost thousands of dollars. 2) The coil you use to shrink the coin explodes violently during the process. It's all a bit too much excitement for me. I'm a cheapskate, and I hate loud noises.
The whole concept is to dump a MASSIVE amount of electrons into an insulator (the pretty acrylic pieces). Then immediately afterwards, you tap the side of the acrylic with a nail and hammer. All those electrons that dont want to be there instantly escape through the nail. The pattern left in the acrylic are the escape paths of those electrons. So the question is: can your Tesla coil dump enough electrons into a piece of acrylic? The follow-up question would be: well how many electrons does it take? I dont know the answer to that. All I know is it's a lot. I dont think any kind "toy" or off the shelf device would be able to do it.
Very cool! The English and French mints have made piedfort (aka piefort) coins, which are double thickness, for collectors. Now they don’t have to use double thick planchets; they can just shrink the diameter and increase the thickness of regular coins magnetically. Cal
Yeah, big high voltage capacitors are very dangerous. The link below shows an extreme case. But high voltage capacitors smaller than a beer can can hold a lethal amount of energy. And yes, folks have been killed by them. Cal
Were they incapacitortated or decapitated? Joking aside, even smaller capacitors can give you a pretty good shock. Just don't hook up an electrolytic or tantalum capacitor backwards unless you have safety glasses on, or else, kaboom and you could lose an eye or be seriously injured. I've dealt with some idiot assemblers that sometimes can't read polarity signs or don't care...
No but I have seen them in action several times. The CEO of a company I used to work for built one that put out about 50,000 volts
We used one to check for leaks on seals we made on a vacuum line and I have hit my thumb several times...makes you squeek!