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I had a friend in High School in the early 70's who was kind of a Dr. Science type. He was always building things and I would help him out sort of like an apprentice. He built several lasars (and this was way before you could buy them at the office supply store as a pointer) and every manor of gadget. He made all kinds of explosives like dynamite and pipe bombs with electronic ingniters.
Back then it was just good clean fun. It was then that I found out what a can of diesel fuel and a 50 lb sack of fertilizer could do. WOW
Once we made a tesla coil. He used a neon sign transfomer as many of them do and he made his own capacitors out of large jars of salty water with tinfoil wraped around the outside and wires hooked up to them. I'm no electical engineer so I don't understand the concept. Anyway the tesla coil we built was very powerful and you could stand about 10 feet away from it holding a flourescent light bulb that wasn't hooked up to anything and it would light up. Finally the neighbors on all sides of his parents house complained as tesla coils can knock out your tv reception and they were getting pretty pissed off.
We lost touch after we went to college and I made contact with him about 10 years later. Found out he got a BS in Physics and a Masters in Chemical Engineering fro Clemson University but didn't do anything with it. Instead he worked on cars at a garage and became a born again Chrisian and went on missions to south America spreading the word.
I feel so much safer knowing he is out there doing missionary work!
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05-16-2002, 02:32 PM
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