Editing Plasma globe (section)

==History==
[[File:Plasma globe 23s.webm|thumb|Video of plasma ball]]
In {{US patent|0514170}} ("Incandescent Electric Light", 1894 February 6), [[Nikola Tesla]] describes a plasma lamp. This patent is for one of the first high-intensity discharge lamps. Tesla used an incandescent-type lamp ball with a single internal conductive element and excited the element with high voltage currents from a [[Tesla coil]], thus creating the brush discharge emanation. He gained patent protection on a particular form of the lamp in which a light-giving small body or button of refractory material is supported by a conductor entering a very highly exhausted ball or receiver. Tesla called this invention the single terminal lamp, or, later, the "Inert Gas Discharge Tube".<ref name=powerlabs/>

The Groundstar style of plasma ball was created by [[James Falk]] and marketed to collectors and science museums in the 1970s and 1980s.<ref name=Gache/> [[Jerry Pournelle]] in 1984 praised Orb Corporation's Omnisphere as "the most fabulous object in the entire world" and "magnificent ... a new kind of art object", stating "you can't buy mine for any price".<ref name="pournelle198404">{{cite news | url=https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1984-04/1984_04_BYTE_09-04_Real-World_Interfacing#page/n57/mode/2up | title=The Most Fabulous Object in the Entire World | work=BYTE | date=April 1984 | access-date=2 March 2016 | author=Pournelle, Jerry | pages=57 | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160325205606/https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1984-04/1984_04_BYTE_09-04_Real-World_Interfacing#page/n57/mode/2up | archive-date=25 March 2016 }}</ref> 

The technology needed to formulate gas mixtures used in today's plasma spheres was not available to Tesla.{{Citation needed|date=February 2010}} Modern lamps typically use combinations of [[xenon]], [[krypton]] and [[neon]], although other gases can be used.<ref name=Gache/><ref name=powerlabs/> These gas mixtures, along with different glass shapes and integrated-circuit-driven electronics, create the vivid colors, range of motions, and complex patterns seen in today's plasma spheres.