I was surfing here and there and I read about an “Art Exhibit.”
Using wasted energy, Richard Box was able to get over a thousand fluorescent tubes powered by low overhead power lines.
Richard Box, artist-in-residence at Bristol University’s physics department, got the idea for Field (2004) – 1,301 fluorescent tubes powered only by the electric fields generated by low overhead powerlines – after a conversation with a friend. ‘He was telling me he used to play with a fluorescent tube under the pylons by his house,’ says the artist. ‘He said it lit up like a light sabre.’ Box decided to see if he could fill a field with tubes lit by the ‘waste’ energy emanating from powerlines. Box denies that he aimed to draw attention to the potential dangers of powerlines, ‘For me, it was just the amazement of taking something that’s invisible and making it visible,’ he says.
via channel4
Very cool effect and really shows what the Mythbusters tried to prove and failed, is actually very possible. They where unable to really prove that something could be powered from the “spare energy” off a power line. Well this “exhibit” sure shows a bunch of florescent bulbs being powered by the lines.
Tags: Art, Interesting, Irony, Oddities, Television
August 31st, 2008 at 8:48 pm
I don’t think Mythbusters wanted it to succeed. I personally have metered about 400VAC on a wire antenna under some power lines. Granted it was only 400uA it was there.