A plasma globe or plasma lamp (also called plasma ball, dome, sphere, tube or orb, depending on shape), is (usually) a clear glass orb filled with a mixture of various noble gases with a high-voltage electrode in the center of the sphere. Plasma filaments extend from the inner electrode to the outer glass insulator, giving the appearance of multiple constant beams of colored light (see corona discharge and electric glow discharge). Plasma globes were most popular as novelty items in the 1980s.
The plasma lamp was invented by Nikola Tesla after his experimentation with high-frequency currents in an evacuated glass tube for the purpose of studying high voltage phenomena, but the modern versions were first designed by Bill Parker. Tesla called this invention an inert gas discharge tube.
Read more about Plasma Globe: Description, Hazards, History, Applications
Famous quotes containing the word globe:
“Even to this day it is easier than it ought to be for me to get a rise out of an American by telling him something about himself which is equally true about every human being on the face of the globe. He at once resents this as a disparagement and an assertion on my part that people in other parts of the globe are not like that, and are loftily superior to such weaknesses.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)