How exactly are electric sparks formed? Carolynne Montijn - researcher of the Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica (CWI) in Amsterdam - developed a 'virtual microscope', a computational technique allowing her to zoom in and out on a spark while it moves. She uses this in a computer model that allows for very accurate simulations of sparks. For the first time quantitative investigation of the branching of sparks becomes possible. The research can be applied in industry to clean gases and is interesting for the understanding of natural phenomena. On 20 December 2005 Montijn defends her PhD thesis at the Eindhoven University of Technology. The research is funded by NWO, the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research.
More information can be found on MAS3's website
