Floating plasma toroid - with David Ricketts

Marvel at the incredible sight of a floating plasma toroid, created by xenon gas within a custom-built globe.

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The plasma toroid is a phenomena that has been known for over 100 years. Discharges like this have been seen by many plasma artists and researchers. The plasma toroid became popular on YouTube due to numerous science communicators reproducing the effect.

One of the earliest is from Zerg Labs in 2022 (   • Toroidal Plasma Generator In Rarefied...  ), with postings as early as 2019 on other social media channels. The Zerg Lab video inspired Tate McAluney (   / @backmacsci  ) to reproduce the demonstration. David was inspired by Tate’s demonstration to create his own demonstration, presented here.

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Prof David Ricketts is an Innovation Fellow in the Technology and Entrepreneurship Centre at Harvard University. He works with organisations around the globe, such as Mastercard, Ubisoft, Disney, General Motors, Dell and Ferarri to accelerate innovation.

David is also an accomplished academic, having his work appear twice in Nature as well as other distinguished publications and books. He is recipient of the National Science Foundation (US) CAREER award and the DARPA Young Faculty Award for his work on nano-electromagnetic devices. His innovations include a re-programmable, self-assembling matter, an American football tracking for sports visualisation with Disney/ESPN, and an advanced wireless power systems for next-generation cars with General Motors Research.

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