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Neon is lighter than air but rarely used due to its scarcity.
Nonetheless a transparent elastic bladder inflated with
neon could be made to glow if it also contained two small
drones, one with a cathode, the other with an anode,
producing an electrical discharge between them. They
could carefully
adjust their positions so as to be
approximately in the vertical axis, one about a third from
the top and the other about a third from the bottom, and
gradually recharge themselves from sunlight and
movement, which probably wouldn't work but the result is
you have a neon light source which could be steered by
remote control around the room, for a while anyway. You
get them in there in the first place like ships in a bottle -
they fold up, you insert them, inflate the balloon and they
then unfold themselves and start arcing.
Periodic Video on Geissler tubes
https://www.youtube...watch?v=NYvEnAvouVA
[bungston, Mar 12 2017]
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Annotation:
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Or you could always just put an LED light in them
like they have at the dollar store. |
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// producing an electrical discharge between them // |
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They would need to be connected electrically for that to work. |
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// could be steered by remote control around the room // |
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Errr, how ? The drones are inside; you would need an additional propulsion system outside. |
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OK, since I can't decide whether to start on the fact that the neon's
buoyancy is defeated by a couple of 10^5 zettaDalton molecules in
each balloon, or the fact that the propellers will make short work of
the
required electrical tether (not to mention the balloon itself), or the
goldfish-in-a-ball steering, or the perpetual charging system... I've
decided you're trolling and will allow the science officer to virtually
assault you around the head and neck with a copy of CRC's
"Handbook" of Chemistry & Physics, 62nd edition. |
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(bad science, but avoids [m-f-d] via multiple passes through the
"fails in interesting ways" loophole) |
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[+] huge inflatable light bulb. |
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Ignoring the by-one's-bootstraps bit. |
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What is needed is a house truss system in the scale, and to
replace, the elastic balloon material. Maybe self assembling
material research will give us the LTA grail. |
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I may evoke antigravity at this point, which changes my
Halfbakery Geek Code to ep++s++g--B+A+ . |
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/They would need to be connected electrically/. Is
that so? I thought the gas itself served as the
electrical conduit. Periodic videos has a fine one
on a turn of the century toy made of blown glass
with various gases inside; I am pretty sure there
are no wires. Neither have I seen wires on my
inspection of neon beer signs. |
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/density/. I understood that to make gases glow
with electricity the gas inside the tube must be at
less than atmospheric pressure. A balloon will be
at atmospheric pressure or a little over. Will it
still glow? |
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The issue there would seem to be a sufficiently strong
envelope to withstand the pressure differential. That is
doable, or there wouldn't be such things as neon lighting.
However, whether it would still be lighter than air is a
different matter. |
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I'm not sure if it would glow. I have some vague idea that
colliding atoms/ions would cancel out the excited electrons,
but I don't know. However, I will find out. |
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// /They would need to be connected electrically/. Is that
so? // |
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There might be a way around the near vacuum to get the neon glow. Think of two balloons one inside the other. make the outer balloon corrugated and rigid, so it frequently stands about a millimneter above the diameter of the inner balloon. The outer balloon is sucked down to near vacuum, with various squiggle lines of near vacuum with glowing neon inside them. That way you could get a neon looking floaty object. |
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witiricity is a thing that lights up a 60W lamp at 300 feet or 300 meters (do not remember), so if it can do that, a narrow beam of witricity on the double layer baloon should keep it glowing brightly. |
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That corrugated balloon scheme is slick, bean. |
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If one of the drones is earthed by coming into contact with
the balloon or there's simply a discharge from a single drone
onto the surface, that would then neutralise the balloon. In
fact, would it be possible to dispense with the drones
entirely and simply charge it by rubbing? |
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/rubbing?/
There has to be current to excite the gas I think. A static charge on a balloon has nowhere to go. |
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So how about something which generates static electricity
within the balloon, such as internal friction? Or, is there a
practical way of slowing light in those circumstances which
will lead to momentary flashes getting dimmed and
extended? Would it be possible to cool the neon to form a
Bose-Einstein condensate in a layer near the surface? Then
when momentary flashes of light hit that layer, they would
slow and leave the balloon gradually. |
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