It's called a darlington and it is sensitive enough that stray AC and
radio stations picked up by your body set it off. Try to power it from a
battery, go outside far from power lines and AM transmitters and touch it
again. It won't work.

Peter

On Mon, 5 Aug 2002, Kieren Johnstone wrote:

>Hi,
>I thought I'd try an experiment based on a transistor; the transistor would switch an LED when two wires (one from +5V, other to base of transistor) were attached to a conductor of sorts.  It was cool, because you could hold one in one hand, the other in the other, and it would light up - two, even three people work holding hands :)  Anyway, I added another transistor, i.e. transistor 1 takes miniscule current, outputs small current, transistor 2 takes small current, outputs slightly larger etc. etc.
>Anyway, I'm noticing weird results with 3 transistors.. the LED fluctuates in a dim state, even with the wires not touching.  Making *any sort* of contact with the wire connected to the primary transistor's base will light up the LED (quite brightly).  Don't even need to be near the +ve supply.  That's touching even the plastic insulation!
>Anyway.. I don't know if this is called a transistor amp or what, but I was just wondering why it does this.. am I naturally generating current? :D
>
>-Kieren
>
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