Drake Anthony Builds 1675-Inspired Plasma Tube With Mercury and Neon, Creating 'Lightning in a Bottle'
Updated
Updated · Gizmodo · Jul 19
Drake Anthony Builds 1675-Inspired Plasma Tube With Mercury and Neon, Creating 'Lightning in a Bottle'
1 articles · Updated · Gizmodo · Jul 19
Summary
Drake “Styropyro” Anthony built a sealed plasma tube that flashes when shaken, using mercury and a small amount of neon to produce a vivid “lightning in a bottle” effect.
1675 experiments by astronomer Jean Picard inspired the device: shaken mercury in an evacuated tube can glow via the triboelectric effect, though Anthony found the effect faint with impure mercury alone.
Neon turned the subtle glow into bright red flashes, while krypton produced blue ones as Anthony tested different tube shapes and noble gases.
A Tesla coil added a second display mode by ionizing the low-pressure gas electrically, creating more dramatic lighting effects in the mercury-gas tubes.