Part science lab and part performance space, this fascinating theater contains the world's largest air-insulated Van de Graaff generator, capable of producing massive indoor lightning bolts for explorations of lightning, conductors, insulators, storm safety, and electromagnetic force.
In the Theater of Electricity there are Telsa coils that produce about half a million volts. Invented Nikola Tesla 1891 to study high-voltage, high frequency alternating current electricity, Tesla coils have no moving parts. They rely on moving charges and changing magnetic forces. Educators used them to create awesome displays of high voltage.
Those two ball-topped columns in the Theater of Electricity are the world’s largest air-insulated Van de Graaff generator. It routinely generates charges of a million volts, which are discharged as bolts of lightning. Originally built in 1932 as an atom smasher by Dr. Robert Van de Graaff, today it puts on a powerful display under the guidance of our intrepid educators.
