Well, What Is It? (December 2018)

Cr4 staff attempt at cold fusion....haha

Like the drink? Kidding...good humor. +1

My guess is it is attempting to be some sort of engine (although I am probably completely wrong)

Close enough ;)

Really!!!!

Yes, close enough :p

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury-arc_valve

aka, mercury vapor rectifier :D

^{That’s it.}

http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Mercury-arc_valve

Impressive!

Indubitably. Johnny, tell 'em what's he's won...

Cheech and Chong's patented multi-user E-hookah.

Well, it would make the colors that much more fun! +1

Electric jellyfish.

Nitrogen lighting test with separate scatter chambers.

Most uninspiring Christmas decoration...

Tako vacuum tube...

Whoa! How does that work then?

I remember seeing something similar on a news program about the "Star Wars initiative" in POTUS Regan's time!!

Early 90's at a guess....

It certainly put the "wind up" the Russians at the time and allowed some nuclear agreements to be made, that might not have been accomplished.

(All from memory only!")

Well in the description it says it was used to raise voltage, nothing on how it works though...argon and mercury vapor both produce blue light in neon lights...so I'll say it's a mercury arc rectifier....

The particular one pictured by the OP is a Mercury rectifier on display in the Beromünster AM transmitter in Switzerland, before being decommissioned

...."A mercury-arc valve or mercury-vapor rectifier or (UK) mercury-arc rectifier^[1][2] is a type of electrical rectifier used for converting high-voltage or high-current alternating current (AC) into direct current (DC). It is a type of cold cathode gas-filled tube, but is unusual in that the cathode, instead of being solid, is made from a pool of liquid mercury and is therefore self-restoring. As a result, mercury-arc valves were much more rugged and long-lasting, and could carry much higher currents than most other types of gas discharge tube.

Invented in 1902 by Peter Cooper Hewitt, mercury-arc rectifiers were used to provide power for industrial motors, electric railways, streetcars, and electric locomotives, as well as for radio transmitters and for high-voltage direct current (HVDC) power transmission. They were the primary method of high power rectification before the advent of semiconductor rectifiers, such as diodes, thyristors and gate turn-off thyristors (GTOs) in the 1970s. These solid state rectifiers have since completely replaced mercury-arc rectifiers thanks to their higher reliability, lower cost and maintenance and lower environmental risk.^[3]"...

Thanks, I take it, it works a bit like a power tube then.

Emmett Brown's flux capacitor prototype ?

I was thinking that it was a prototype Mr. Fusion.

High power laser?

Only ever seen one before at a mine site. The signs around the enclosure said something like "If you see blue, it can kill you."

Apparently when they are active they also give off radiation in "x" ray and gamma wavelengths.

The one shown to me was encased in an enclosure of dry stacked lead bricks when in operation. It had been "retired" when I saw it back in 1983.