Plasma orbs are incredible little ‘toys’ of science. Essentially, every plasma orb is a Tesla Coil enclosed inside a gas-filled glass container. Depending on the gas contained in the orb, you may experience a wide range of colors. Electricity passes through the gas, exciting it and ionizing it, which makes it plasma. When you touch the glass, the current is directed towards your skin, resulting in bright light and sometimes high-pitched sound.
Touching a plasma orb is fun enough, but here are a few new tricks you might want to try.
Light bulb trick
Take any fluorescent light bulb and slowly move it closer to the plasma orb. If you do it properly, the bulb will light up! Now, if you have a CFL bulb (the kind with the coils and the regular screw-in bottom), touch the bottom of the bulb (the part you screw in) to the glass of the plasma orb. If you touch the metal bottom at the same time, the bulb will not light. If you touch only the bulb, however, your touch will light up whichever part of the bulb you are touching!
Feel free to experiment with different bulbs and different orientations. Other bulbs will work similarly and produce different effects. You can even do a little magic show. Put the orb under a piece of fabric (your ‘magical cloth,’ you might call it). Say a few magic words and turn on the orb. It looks really neat under a piece of fabric (and it’s harder for your audience to tell what it is). Then do the same basic light bulb tricks. People will be amazed!
Try to calculate this!
LCD screens work in a similar way with your plasma ball. Again, simply move the screen of the calculator close to the orb (but you don’t need to touch it). Eventually, you will notice different numbers appearing and disappearing, strings of zeros across the screen, and error messages might appear. Experiment with different screens and different positions.
Laptop touch pad–Deactivated!
If you have a laptop with a touch-pad for the mouse, keep the orb near the pad. You will notice it will stop working, or work very slowly! The electromagnetic field of the orb interferes with the signal broadcast by the touch pad. Once you remove the plasma orb, it will start working again.
Spark of fire
Be very careful with this trick! Only do this under adult supervision in a fire-safe place! And do not attempt this with a very high-powered plasma orb! This trick works best with small, USB plasma orbs. Take a metal object and let it sit atop the ball. It may be difficult to position the metal object. Most people recommend using a quarter (twenty-five cent piece) for this, but I had better success with a metal bottle lid. The concave shape of the drink lid allows it to fit almost like a hat with your plasma orb.
Now, take an ordinary paper clip and bend it so one part sticks out ninety degrees from the ‘loop.’ Move the paper clip very near the plasma orb, without quite touching it. You will notice a bright purplish spark coming between the first metal object (coin, lid, etc.) and the paper clip! Do not touch this spark, as it could burn you. Now, put a small, thin piece of paper atop the first metal object and repeat the same process. Eventually, the paper will start to burn! Just make sure to put the fire out before it gets dangerous!
