http://anonym.to?http://www.metacafe.com/fplayer/915226/free_electricity_from_thin_air.swf

Quite interesting!

Sounds a bit like the cause of this picture below. I have a friend who tried walking under a pylon holding a fluorescent tube after this story broke and sure enough it lit up!

http://stopgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/richard-box.jpg

Some ppl think its fake,i dunno what to think anymore :D

Sounds a bit like the cause of this picture below. I have a friend who tried walking under a pylon holding a fluorescent tube after this story broke and sure enough it lit up!

http://stopgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/richard-box.jpg


Neat photo. Know I just need a giant powerline installed over my house to get my bulbs to work for free! (Actually it makes you wonder what all that electricity floating around will do you if you stay to long under those towers?)

Gis is right, it works fine -- but there's no free lunch.  The energy you're using to light those tubes is being taken from the power lines in the field.

You could actually (do not try this; it's not merely illegal, it's hazardous to your health) lay out a large coil of copper wire beneath the power lines, and induce enough current in the copper wire to supply unmetered power to your house.  Assuming you don't kill yourself in the process, very soon after trying this stunt, someone will notice hundreds of dollars worth of copper wire and injure or kill themselves stealing it.  They and their next of kin will sue you.  If you're lucky and nobody steals your wire, the power company will notice abnormal transmission loss from that segment of the grid, and when their maintenance truck sees your copper wire, the power company will sue you.  There ain't no such thing as a free lunch!

The hazards aren't from the electrical field's effect on the gases in the low pressure environment of the fluorescent tubes, by the way -- that's perfectly safe and a pretty cool thing to do whenever you're around a power line.  The hazards I'm warning about are from people who've tried to lay long enough lengths of copper cable to actually get usable amounts of current out of it, and then transform that current down to 120V.  Yes, people living next door to power lines have actually tried this.  If they're lucky, they get caught before they fry themselves.  Most just get a painful physics lesson and learn from their experience.  Some discover that "terminal" isn't just something you attach wires to.

For a safe... well... for a safer version of this experiment, build yourself a small tesla coil and use a compact fluorescent bulb.  The physics behind the field of glowing fluorescents is essentially same.

A small Tesla coil may not be as awesome a demonstration as a huge field of power lines, but it's a hell of a lot more portable, and unlike a power transmission line, you can build a Tesla coil yourself!

I wish my electricity was free!

Electricity, with home heating and fuel bills are expected to rise this winter by 40%.

I wouldnt doubt it!!

Someone needs to do something AND NOW!!

I wouldnt doubt it!!

Someone needs to do something AND NOW!!
Our PM Gordon Brown is trying but he is getting it all wrong.

I wish my electricity was free!


Me, too!

Me, too!
Is there a way I can plug into next door and use some of their electricity?