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from here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_laser
my take on this is that the more you look at various hardware,
the more you see that any sharp rise time in a pulse seems to do something new.
this is just what tesla investigated
it was some unwanted effect that he apparently figured had to be investigated to figure out how not to do it at all (after all it killed people).
anyway,
asymmetrical current flow is noticed all over, and just not in the electrostatic lifter thing.
The intense discharge is reported to distort oscilloscopes nearby. This can be reduced by building the laser symmetrically into a grounded cylinder with the spark gap at the bottom, the laser at the top, capacitor 1 left and right, and capacitor 2 left and right stacked onto capacitor 1. This has the further advantage of reducing the inductance. And this has the disadvantage that the laser channel cannot be inspected for sparks anymore.
the more you see that any sharp rise time in a pulse seems to do something new.
this is just what tesla investigated
it was some unwanted effect that he apparently figured had to be investigated to figure out how not to do it at all (after all it killed people).
anyway,
asymmetrical current flow is noticed all over, and just not in the electrostatic lifter thing.