Captured Lightning Sculptures

This is pretty cool... Electricity fascinates me and scares me all at the same time. MHO... This is the type of art where nature and science comes together.

MODS: Wasn't sure if I should put this here or in BTS... Feel free to move where you like.

This Captured Lightning® sculpture was created by irradiating a block of clear acrylic with a beam of electrons from a 5 million volt particle accelerator. An electron beam irradiated the left side, the specimen was then rotated 180 degrees, and it was irradiated once more on the opposite side. This created two independent layers of electrical charge deep inside the specimen. The rightmost charge layer was then manually discharged, creating a miniature "lightning storm" within the layer immediately above. Additional discharges then grew between the right and left charge layers, forming a beautifully interconnected 3D discharge pattern. This sculpture was then illuminated from below by blue light emitting diodes (LED's). Unlike low-resolution laser crystal art, each of our Captured Lightning® sculptures contain a unique, and incredibly detailed, natural fractal discharge pattern. No two sculptures are identical. As they branch, the branching discharge channels become increasingly finer and hairlike, ultimately disappearing at the tips. The smallest discharges are thought to extend down to the molecular level.

Source: Lichtenburg





Similar images like that seen on people that have been struck by lightening...

WANT!!

One of those would look awesome by my turntables.

I love it, thanks for posting

I remember a while back, on the magic moving picture box, a show about lightening and sand. The lightening goes through the sand, turning the outer edges to glass, and you end up with a 3D sculpture of the lightening bolt. That was cool too (but not as cool as the above)

reply to post by Acidtastic


You and me both... Can you imagine having a coffee table, dinning table or even a picture window that had this... although not practicable.

I wonder what it would look like if you have a laser pointed at the entry area.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/715d943f5de0.jpg[/atsimg]

It's awesome what you can do with 5 million volts of electricity.

Looks like you can order from the site to Get a lichtenburg

Not cheap though.

I found this article today:

www.dailymail.co.uk...

Here are some pictures from the article:











[edit on 3-12-2009 by berenike]