Plasma Double Layers first reported in 1898 lab experiment by Max Toepler

[Holger Isenberg]

Anthropomorphic shapes of glowing plasma in normal air were observed and drawn by physicist Max Toepler in 1898. See attachments. His experiment created what he called Lichtgestalten inside a 15x60 cm vertical glass cylinder from normal air under atmosphere pressure down to only 10 mbar using a few 10s kV DC produced by the electric influence machine quite common at that time, invented by his father August Toepler. The identical shapes at Sego Canyon petroglyphs, Utah, is no coincidence. Most likely, the ancients observed the same electrical discharges through the ionospheric plasma during the time of the devastating catastrophe in that area.

The same experiment by Max Toepler in 1898 already showed what later became known in 1929 by Irving Langmuir as plasma double layers.

Those we can now observe on a large scale in space. In his article, which is purely observational analytical, he described observations of equidistant glowing layers in high detail and how they enlarge with decreased pressure and current around 0.5mA at several 10s of kV DC, but doesn't add any hypothesis about their origin.

His article: "Geschichtete Dauerentladung in freier Luft (Büschellichtbogen) und Righi’sche Kugelfunken", Dr. Max Toepler, 1898
translated: Layered continuous discharge in free air (tuft arcs) and Righi's sphere sparks).
in: Sitzungsberichte und Abhandlungen der Naturwissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft Isis in Dresden 1898
index of all 189 meeting reports of this society: https://www.zobodat.at/publikation_volumes.php?id=57472

Direct link to article: https://www.zobodat.at/publikation_arti ... ?id=380932

He refers to his older article in Max Planck's Annalen der Physik Vol.63 1897, p109, Geschichtete Entladung in freier Luft.
Index only: https://archive.org/details/sim_annalen ... 9/mode/2up

I couldn't find that older article's text yet online.

For users on X I have posted the same today:
https://x.com/areoinfo/status/1840877682202198095
https://x.com/areoinfo/status/1840882014737875134

I see viewing attachments is currently blocked. Here the references from the original PDF: https://www.zobodat.at/publikation_arti ... ?id=380932

Fig.1-6
Fig.7-9, 10-12
Fig.13
Fig.20
Photo 20

[Holger Isenberg]

I arrived at this article while searching for the term Anode Tufts. Those are the bubble like glowing half-spheres around the spherical electrode in some runs of the SAFIRE experiment. It's a surprisingly rarely found term! Only got to 1 article within the last 100 years:

Anode tufting, arc faulting and plasma nonuniformity in ion sources, R. Jones, 1983
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1983N ... J/abstract

But couldn't get to the text. If anyone has access, please send!

In Toepler's 1898 article he also describes something looking like anode tufts, here on slate plate at the bottom above the anode. Text from Fig.20 (in my above posting attached):

Ist die Schieferplatte Anode und steht ihr die negative Messingpolkugel auf ca 5 cm nahe, so erscheint eine ca. 1 qcm grosse Fläche der Schieferplatte von hellen violetten Glimmlichtpunkten bedeckt. Ueber diesen schwebt, wenn der mittlere Strom 1/3000 Amp. überschritt, eine sehr lichtschwache ziegelrothe Lichtmasse.

translation:
If the slate plate is the anode and the negative (2cm diameter) brass pole ball is about 5 cm close to it, an area of ​​about 1 cm² of the slate plate appears to be covered with bright violet glowing points. If the average current exceeded 1/3000 amp, a very faint brick-red mass of light hovers above these.