We have observed clouds of 3 inch 'sparks' coming off plastic balls rolling along wood tracks.
That would make a cool kinetic art sculpture. What kind of plastic, was the wood bare or finished?
I'v always considered Sparks creating tiny EMP's not the other way around (but it is possible at high energies). Actually I would call it pulsed EMI since EMP carries the implication of much higher amplitude, shorter duration and more frequency content. Theres kind of a grey line seperating the two when it comes to an Arc discharge's EM signature.
I think of it as EMP because it was one blast which would have been short in duration, but have a lot of high frequency content so as to use a 4 foot section of wire as an antenna. The spark would be from the high power burst jumping to its electromagnetic radiator, the wire.
Compared to a lightning strike, it had very weak EMP associated with it. Even compared to the EMP which a Tesla coil would produce in a jumping spark, it was weak.
