Drake Anthony Recreates the 1675 Mechanical Bulb Using Mercury and Friction
Drake Anthony Recreates the Mechanical Bulb First Seen in 1675 – TechEBlog
I spent time in my workshop recreating a 1675 phenomenon where shaking a glass flask filled with mercury creates visible light. By mastering glassblowing and vacuum techniques, I replicated the 'barometric light' discovered by Jean Picard. Adding neon gas amplified the effect, proving that friction between mercury and glass can generate electricity without batteries or wiring.
When mercury flows smoothly over a clean glass surface, it leaves a trail of electric charge that can travel through the air inside the container.
- eig
This blog post is essentially a summary of the original video.
- NegativeLatency
Just go watch the YouTube video, this blog rips off YouTube content.
- ck2
for a moment I thought this was going to be about arc-lights in the 1800s that mechanically touch electrodes and then draw apart
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_lamp
it's amazing how far we've come
think about Benjamin Franklin twenty-five years before Declaration of Independence naming the first "battery" (out of the concept of lined-up artillery) by connecting a series of lynden jars (basically capacitors) - he also invented the concept of +/- positive and negative
now we've got space telescopes and probes leaving the solar system
imagine what's coming in another 300 years