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Science

Ball Lightning Explained? 177

Posted by Roblimo from the interesting-phenomena dept.
Anonymous Coward sent it in: a BBC story that says, "Two New Zealand scientists think they can explain one of the great mysteries of the natural world - ball lightning."
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Ball Lightning Explained? More

Ball Lightning Explained?

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  • Finally! I really hate it when someone taps a few mountains and tosses one of those things out.

    Wow. I can't believe I just made a Magic: The Gathering reference. I deserve to be modified into the stone age.

  • Moderated. I deserve to be moderated into the stone age. Whatever. I think it's a given, anyway.
  • Now if I can just figure out how to make my PDA into an Abrahamson generator, I can really get even . . .

  • amazement (Score:3)

    by Bastian ( 66383 ) on Wednesday February 02, 2000 @08:39PM (#1309644)
    And here all along I was told it was from angels farting.
  • ...that ball lightning is formed by Poseidon's trident.

    -dj

    closet Xena fan(atic)

  • Screw the BFG-9000, just gimme a ball lightening gun to throw through walls. I only use a micro size amount of silicon, et al. with some electriciti and BAM! 100 frags! :)


    -Davidu

  • Good slashdot article... (Score:4)

    by pb ( 1020 ) on Wednesday February 02, 2000 @08:42PM (#1309649)
    Slashdot scientists discovered the origin of ball lightning while attempting to overclock their new Athlons to 1Ghz without proper cooling mechanisms.

    "...and then I gave it the juice, man, and it was like, this huge cloud of fire and stuff passing through my case, and I said 'Whoa, Stovetop, did you do that?', and Stovetop said 'No, man, maybe it was the silicon', and I said 'Thats stupid', but then Stovetop said 'I think thats the same as ball lightning', and I said 'that would hurt, man', and Stovetop got pissed at me and left and wrote up a paper and got famous and stuff, and all I have is this charred motherboard and stuff."
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].

  • Make your own ball lightning.... (Score:5)

    by Arcanix ( 140337 ) on Wednesday February 02, 2000 @08:43PM (#1309650)
    This link has lots of info on ball lightning and you can even get instructions on how to create your very own ball lightning, woohoo! ;)

    Ball Lightning

  • Not the whole story, I think (Score:3)

    by LabWeasel ( 13540 ) on Wednesday February 02, 2000 @08:44PM (#1309652)
    This is interesting. While it may explain ball lightning very near the surface of the (silicon-rich) earth's crust, I fail to see how it explains the observations of ball lightning well above the surface. Perhaps these researchers are on to a special case of a more general phenomenon?

  • Fun stuff! (Score:4)

    by ninjaz ( 1202 ) on Wednesday February 02, 2000 @08:44PM (#1309653)
    That theory says ball lighting could move through windows and doors because they may have cracks in them seems like a bit of a gloss-over. What about passing through airplanes? I'm aware that select flights feature holes ripped in the body of the airplane, but still. ;) Of course, the eye-witnesses could be lying...


  • No more Magic:The Gathering comments may be made in the vicinity of this card.
  • "ball lightning" was one of the best cards, something that you essentially sacrificed to do a great deal of damage to any target. I loved that card. Oh yeah, very interesting article, too :)

    "There are no shortcuts to any place worth going."

  • My roommate screwed me over yesterday... I played a Ball Lightning and he Lightning Bolted it!!! I was like, DAMMIT!!!!!!
  • Well, it wasnt really that hard to get it through the airplane what with the door open so the passengers could board. . .
  • I don't think lightning should have parties. I mean, really now, we already have Presidential Erections, and they even got the IRS to collect for it. What's next? Is the IRS gonna collect for the lightning's parties? Geez!

    -- Laugh. It's funny.

  • Re:Fun stuff! (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    >That theory says ball lighting could move through windows and doors because they may have cracks in them...

    correction. its because of the HOLES in windows

    bad ms joke.

  • And the answer is........ Corn Liquor! (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 02, 2000 @08:53PM (#1309664)
    Moonshine! Why are the people who see stuff like ball lightning and UFOs always some backwoods hick you wouldn't dare let get near a lit match? These are the tales of drunkards. Ball lightning. UFOs. Elvis sightings. Hitler an old man living in Argentina. All poppycock!
  • that little ball lightning becomes a real big freakin ball lightning.

    D'oh. Sorry. It just slipped out.

  • GUT (Score:2)

    by crayz ( 1056 )
    This one, however, unifies an awful lot of the properties of ball lightning under one theoretical umbrella

    Great, a Grand Unified Theory of ball lightning, just what the world needs.
  • It could be something as simple as the witnesses saw the ball lightning move downward but it was in fact behind the plane.. It would make it look like the ball lightning was passing through the plane

  • Creating Ball Lightning (Score:3)

    by Detritus ( 11846 ) on Wednesday February 02, 2000 @09:03PM (#1309674) Homepage
    There was a television documentary that showed one way to make something that looked like ball lightning. The experimenter had a warehouse full of surplus submarine storage batteries. These were connected to a metal rod suspended above a metal plate. The plate had a ridge on its surface. When the rod was swung over the ridge, it would strike an arc and small, glowing spheres would go bouncing across the plate. The spheres would vanish after several seconds.

  • Isn't that when.. (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 02, 2000 @09:03PM (#1309675)
    Isn't that what happens when you're only wearing socks and you drag your feet on the carpet and then bring your crotch too close to a door knob?
  • The theory sounds interesting, but it remains cold fusion without an experiment.

    The article says "Unfortunately, the researchers have not been able to generate ball lightning in the laboratory. But Dr Graham Hubler, of the United States Naval Research Laboratory, who has taken a keen interest in lightning balls, says the research has much promise."

    The grand story of the modern age: "We have solved the problem - it's a new theory"

  • Re:Fun stuff! (Score:4)

    by Desperado ( 23084 ) on Wednesday February 02, 2000 @09:04PM (#1309677)
    I too wonder how it can appear in airplanes. A few years ago I was in a DC-10 late one night circling DFW waiting to get a slot to land during a severe thunderstorm. I, and other passengers, saw ball lightening float down the aisle between our seats and exit the rear bulkhead of the aircraft. Where it went after that I have no idea. Scared the *** out of me.

  • Anyone else reminded of a Mandelbrot set by the bottom picture, on the 100 nm scale?

    At one point Tesla claimed to have reproduced ball lightning in his laboratory, but evidently the margin of his notebook proved too small to contain the procedure he followed. :-|

    -- jm

  • Tomorrow's Jon Katz article (Score:5)

    by Amphigory ( 2375 ) on Wednesday February 02, 2000 @09:04PM (#1309679) Homepage
    Scientists were shocked yesterday at the discovery of two lonely geeks in New Zealand. These geeks, working alone for years, finally explained the existence of ball lightning, thereby removing the last barrier to a new age where geeks will rule the earth.

    Religious leaders around the world were knocked on their antiquated rear-ends at the news. Finally, it has been proved beyond a doubt that a phenomenon mistaken by three ignorant peasants in France in the 14th century for the prescence of God was in fact just a ball of silicon! Religious leaders around the world will no longer be able to oppress people with their narrow-minded, antiquated ideas about right and wrong based on these putative sightings of deity.

    Dare we hope that this will finally usher in the end of religion? That we can have an age based on stark individualism and rampant materialism? That silicon will finally defeat the oppressors that have held we^H^H (oops -- too grammatical) us geeks down for millenia?

    One thing is sure: nothing can ever be the same now that we have explained a rare meterological phenomenon! (Interesting article. BTW, I saw ball lightning once -- no, I didn't think it was God. But it was one of the freakiest things I've ever seen. Let the moderation begin!)

  • Here's a link to the journal site (Score:3)

    by A nonymous Coward ( 7548 ) on Wednesday February 02, 2000 @09:09PM (#1309683)
    Right here [nature.com]

    It's not the actual journal report, but a summary for civilians :-)

    --
  • Yes, I saw the same thing, several years ago.. and it was a submarine battery that was so big it required a warehouse of its own... now that'd power the laptop for a while...
  • I don't have video or photos of ball lightning, but I do have a story my grandfather told me about it and I hope that you might find it interesting. My grandfather died when I was very young, so I have no way of re-verifying this story, unfortunately.

    According to him, after a summer thunderstorm in central Pennsylvania, he and his family were sitting in their living room when a ball of lightning 'rolled' up to their front door (which was open, although a screened door was closed at the time) and through it into their living room.

    The ball of light, which he described as a bright yellowish white, travelled through the living room and through the rooms and hallways behind it only to disappear through the back door. Strange stuff - lucky for my Grampa, too! I've never encountered such, but I'd love to witness a phenomenon that many scientist discount as hooey only to see it proven true as fact.

  • Want to learn about ball lightning? (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 02, 2000 @09:26PM (#1309688)
    My dad has written a lot of papers on ball lightning, some are available here [umsl.edu].
  • They speculated that the balls floated with air current. All originating from the ground but scampering off to the nearest aircraft to scare other new zealand scientists, like Jason Gunn.
  • From text:

    The network of silicon filaments should be very flexible and move wherever air moves. So if air can get through a crack as a draught, the ball should be able to squeeze through, and then rearrange itself on the other side.

    Does this remind you of that liquid robot (T1000) from Terminator 2? heheh

    --
    GroundAndPound.com [groundandpound.com] News and info for martial artists of all styles.

  • Oh, where you come from is it standard practice to have the plane doors open while the aircraft is in a holding pattern awaiting landing instructions. The suggested ability of passengers to _board_ a flight at such a point hints at passengers with greater than usual abilitys. Could it be that you are in fact posting from Krypton?
  • No no no Its "One more Electric Energy, then I can attack with Zapdos!"
  • Two things strike me as odd with this. First the ball lightning is supposed to come from silicon in the soil that is somehow ignited by the excessive heat of the original lightning strike. Second, the ball's of lightning are supposed to have passed through completely impermeable objects such as airplane fuselages and glass. These two facts point to a major contradition here. If the ball originally started out ground level it takes a wild imagination to figure out how it remained burning until it reached an elevation of approx. 10,000 feet, where it happened to collide with a moving airplane.

    Furthermore, if it is burning soil (silicon) how in the earth does it pass through solid glass without melting the glass or walls. Somehow I don't think Heisenberg's uncertainty principle applies in this case.

    My suggestion or better yet theory is that this is just another form of static electricity manifesting itself in an interesting form. Much like the St. Elmo's fire often seen on ships in strong electrical storms. The forming of a ball of ionizing atoms makes me think that somehow this may be related to some sort of surface tension phenomena, much like a soap bubble naturally forms into a perfect sphere. Also this would explain the ability of the ball to pass through solid structures since it is merely a concentrated build up of static electricity and not actual "burning particles". You may refute this theory if I'm wrong or if you can bore enough holes into it. But definetly some food for thought.


    Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
    NPS Internet Solutions, LLC
    www.npsis.com [npsis.com]

  • Alternate Ball lightening theory (Score:3)

    by Crixus ( 97721 ) on Wednesday February 02, 2000 @10:18PM (#1309703)
    Many years ago (like 20) the ABC TV Show That's Incredible had a scientist on who put forth a theory on ball lightening, and even had a small laboratory experiment that demonstrated his theory on a small scale.

    This scientist claimed that his data showed that ball lightening seemed to show up in areas of geologic instability... near fault lines, etc...

    He postulated that the incredible forces involved along these fault lines caused the quartz in the rock to super-heat and become almost plasma-like.

    In the lab he took some granite and applied a tremendous amount of pressure to the sample, and when it eventually fractured, his high-speed camera picked up small examples of this "quartz plasma" floating through the air.

    He then speculated that on a larger scale, such as along fault lines, that these quartz-plasma balls of light would naturally be larger.

    Interesting if nothing else.

    I think a better question would be why I remember details about a 20-year old TV show.

  • I may have seen a Ball Lightling, once. (Score:3)

    by Taco Cowboy ( 5327 ) on Wednesday February 02, 2000 @10:23PM (#1309706) Journal


    I was about five years old, it was raining outside, and was thundering all evening.

    I was deafly afraid of thunder, so I hopped on my bed, my sanctuary at that time, to find solace.

    It was a "crackling" sound, not a loud crack, but one that sounded different - something very near me. I jumped out of the bed, looked around, and saw something shimmering, no, something very bright that hovers an inch or two above the ground.

    It wasn't exactly a "ball", but kinda round in shape. It has a bright yellowish light, just floating and floating, not actually moving a lot.

    I was a little kid at that time, I did not know what it was, and as a curious kid, I squad a few inches away from it and watched.

    I looked at it for, oh, I forgot how long, but it must be long enough for me to remember that I had to tell someone about it, so I ran out of my room, grabbing my dad and trying to get him inside my room.

    By the time I went back to my room with my dad, the ball was gone.

    There was no heat, at least I did not feel any "heat" at all, when I was only inches away from that bright floating ball. The BBC report said that something was "burning", and if something was "burning", there ought to be heat, but there was no heat, at least to my knowledge, for the bright ball that appeared before me.

    It was only much latter in my life that I learned of such things as "Ball Lightining", but to tell you the truth, I do not know if the bright floating ball that I saw was a Ball Lighting or not.

    It was just something that I saw, and I think I am the only witness to that thing.

    Oh well...

  • Hmm, it could be that the ball lightning didn't actually pass through the outside of the plane, but formed inside the plane. Maybe lightning could vaporize silicon from the inside of one of the glass windows. The passenger windows in planes are usually covered by a pane of plastic, but it's not sealed around the edges, and, if the ball lightning works the way they've described, it should be able to pass around the plastic pane.
    Also, as far as aeroplanes and unusual effects of lightning go, I remember reading somewhere about fireballs that build up on the nosecones of planes flying through thunderstorms. Are those the same as ball lightning if what is being said about it is true? Where would the silicon come from on the nosecone of a jet? Is it fiberglass covered perhaps? Or could this be something different, like the electrical corona that sailors used to call St. Elmo's Fire. Well, anyway, there are still plenty of unexplained things out there to wonder about.
  • ...and here I always thought it was Goku and the latest villain of the month having at it... "Spirit Ball!!!!"
  • What, did your little sister forward that to you or something? FYI, if you say "According to new licensing laws" people automatically know you are full of shit. Atleast put a broken link up and say something like "the law is so new that the site telling about it might not have its url filtered out to your DNS yet." Then maybe if you are lucky someone might belive you. Also, you should have waited until there was a thread going about copyrights. Then you wouldn't have put both of us at risk of being moderated down for being off-topic. Not that it matters, especially to an AC.

    sludgebot

    all rights reserved, all wrongs reversed

  • Other non-bogus theories (Score:4)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Wednesday February 02, 2000 @10:42PM (#1309711) Homepage
    Ball lightning was observed by multiple observers in an airplane cabin in 1969. See New Scientist [newscientist.com] for a cite, and a 1998 theory involving "crossed magnetic loops". But nobody can get "crossed magnetic loops" to happen experimentally.

    It's frustrating. Despite much high-voltage engineering work, nobody has created ball lightning. GE used to have a large outdoor test facility in Ohio powerful enough to create full-scale lightning bolts, and they couldn't make ball lightning. There are some antenna towers that get hit by lightning hundreds of times a year, and have all their lightning hits recorded, yet ball lightning hasn't been seen there.

  • Sure you aren't thinking of St Elmos fire? This is the electrical discharge effect you get on the masts of ships during storms, named for the patron saint of sailors.

  • Scientists... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I bet their funding was coming to an end, so they quickly created some obviusly stupid explanation. I guess guys you can say your funding bye-bye.

    If you really must know the truth, ball lightning is nothing but fire elementals summoned by level 5 warlocks. They cost 100 spell points, that's why they are so rare. See, my explanation is just as good, go get a real job.

    Free Jon's computers !

  • Hmm.. (Score:3)

    by Lally Singh ( 3427 ) on Wednesday February 02, 2000 @10:56PM (#1309716) Journal
    Well, I guess that covers that whole UFO thing. Most descriptions of UFOs seem to fit this ball lightening description as well.. conspiracy to hide the truth? :-)

    And everyone already knows about the lightening in airplanes... You sit down, put your legs up by your shoulders, hold a lighter over your ass, and...

    --
    How do you keep an idiot in suspense?
    Tell him the next version of Windows will be faster, more reliable, and easier to use!

  • Don't forget the Berserk :)

    -ElJefe

  • Not enough energy (Score:3)

    by edhall ( 10025 ) <slashdot@weirdnoise.com> on Wednesday February 02, 2000 @11:07PM (#1309718) Homepage

    Theories based on burning dust have already been rejected because such combustion doesn't yield enough energy for ball lightning's luminance and (sometimes) longevity. I don't think binding particles into microchains, as this article proposes, changes this problem. There are reports of ball lightning boiling water, melting glass, exploding with enough force to cause structural damage--all phenomena which require far more energy than combustion of the small amount of material that can be supported by the buoyancy of its own heated gas.

    This doesn't even mention ball lightning's occurance inside airplanes, its tendency to be attracted to conductors, its occurance without any nearby lightning strikes, or its similarity to other electrical plasma phenomena, such as ball plasmas observed near high-current switches (like on electrically-powered submarines).

    Just because you come up with a hypothesis that explains a few of ball lightning's characteristics doesn't mean anything until you can explain all of them.

    -Ed

  • Re:BALL LIGHTNING - NOT (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I hereby nominate the above post for a Slashdot Beanie Award in the category of "Greatest Slashdot Post of the Year"! Thank you very much!!!!!!!!!!!!! =))))))))))))))) (/me wipes the drool off his chin)
  • Well one thing about the theory, I was watching a discovery special about lighting. And the researchers said what happens it a charge actually comes up from ground to meet the downard stroke and slowed it down so you could see it. If so how would the silicon fragments burn? I guess it may be expelled as the charge flies updward but that seems to pat to me. Sounds like they needed something quick so came up with this.
  • Many things in nature make one believe in God! :-)
  • Slashdot scientists??? An oxymoron if EVER I heard one :-) (please spare your wrath CmdrTaco :)

  • That's St. Elmo's Fire, actually. It's very uncommon with modern plains, due to the little thingamajigs they put on the wings to 'bleed' static electricity from the wings of the ship. But, should those fail, I can it still being possible.

  • ...This scientist claimed that his data showed that ball lightening seemed to show up in areas of geologic instability... near fault lines, etc...
    He postulated that the incredible forces involved along these fault lines caused the quartz in the rock to super-heat and become almost plasma-like.

    I remember this too. However, since quartz is silicon dioxide, it may in fact be the same thing as the NZ discovery, just a different way of achieving the same result. IIRC, the key feature of this type of "ball lightning" was the lack of thunderstorms in the area at the time of the sightings, and apparent clustering of sightings along fault lines. I also seem to remember reading about this in a book, either about lightning/ball lightning, or a famous (infamous?) series of UFO sightings in NZ in the late 70's or early 80's; if it was the latter, ball lightning (and particularly the seismic variety) was offered as a possible explanation.

  • Re:Fun stuff! (Score:5)

    by ninjaz ( 1202 ) on Thursday February 03, 2000 @01:27AM (#1309731)
    With the help of Google, I found this article in Scientific American about ball lightning/St. Elmo's Fire: http://www.sciam.com/askexper t/physics/physics35.html [sciam.com]

    According to it, St. Elmo's Fire always stays attached to an object, while ball lightning can "drift around like a soap bubble".

    Another page with lots of Ball Lightning resources is here: http://www.sciam.com/askexper t/physics/physics30.html [sciam.com]

  • Possible sighting of 'silicon lightning' (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 03, 2000 @01:30AM (#1309732)
    I may have seen the phenomenon described in the article [details below], but -- and this is important -- it was definitely not ball-shaped.

    Nor would there be any reason to expect the phenomena described inn the article to be ball shaped. The best that can be said is that it could concievably sometimes manifest in the manner described by the ball lightning reports.

    My sighting fits how I'd expect a silicon dustball (or if you prefer: 'clustering microspheres of condensed silicon vapor') to behave... namely much like the 'carbon' dustballs (dust bunnies) they themselves used as analogies in the article

    DESCRIPTION:
    It was in 1977, while I was doing a go/no-go test of a batch of 10A (junk surplus) silicon full-wave rectifiers of 1960's vintage. My test rig was an AC plug hastily wired to four 'pin' sockets, two neon bulbs and two high voltage diodes -- plugged into what I thought was a circuit-breaker protected outlet. (the circuit breaker was later found to be shorted 'on')


    About halfway through the batch (100% pass rate), a rectifier failed dramatically, producing a sight that has mystified me for 20+ years. I have always described it as a 'bright 4-7 cm strikingly violet plasma-like flame' that shot out of the hole blown in the side of rectifier.

    • Its shape was irregular and (very) roughly conical or pyramidal, with the apex at the hole in the rectifier (described below), and the 'base' extending outward. The base had very spiky rough flame-like projections, but they did not move appreciably, unlike the irregular flames from a bunsen burner with a flame spreader
    • It had a distinct quivering nature (low frequency, amplitude of 4-8mm)
    • It had the kind of optical diffuseness that I recently saw in a display of highly fluorescent aerogels (often described as 'frozen smoke)
    • It had definite borders, but they looked out-of-focus (in retrospect: perhaps high frequency vibration with amplitude if ca 1-2mm?)
    • Its volume and shape appeared to remain constant for the 45 or so seconds I watched it (then curiosity got the better of me, and I switched off the power to see if it would return
    • with the power off, I could see that the silicon junction (a few mm rectangle) was nearly completely vaporized, with the remaining silicon, the metal contacts and the hole in the plastic casing showing distinctly molten edges. the hole was a characteristic 'ejection crater'
    • There was a scrap of very lint-like 'ash' on my bench, which I didn't examine further (alas) believing it was burned casing.


    In short: a quivering bit 'o' silicon lint glowing
    in a striking beautiful violet

    Since this occurred in a normal atmosphere, at room temperature (low humidity - that room was always dry in winter), I'm guessing others have seen similar displays. any other reports?
  • GE used to have a large outdoor test facility in Ohio powerful enough to create full-scale lightning bolts, and they couldn't make ball lightning.

    Well, if it ever gets built, the "largest Tesla Coil system that is theoretically and practically possible" [lod.org] might be a good place to research ball lightning. And many other cool things.

  • Incidentally, someone rang in to my favourite talk back radio show on Thursday, to ask DR Karl (the top Australian science guy) [abc.net.au] why he is getting a ball of lightning whenever he places a lit candle and a tooth pick into a microwave!

    Here is the link to the actual question [abc.net.au] that was asked, and here is a link to the discussion [abc.net.au] which is very interesting.

    Also if youre lazy to check out the above links, here is a direct link to a web page that has instructions on how to make your own ball of lightning [tripod.com]!!

    Enjoy :)

  • Military Intelligence?
  • like little girls? OK, so I can't give a lot of details, but when I was in the service, we inadvertently created an electrical fireball, umm, somewhere. I mean, it lept out of this, ummm, piece of equipment, and started bouncing around the compartment. I was just close enough when it started to hear my fellow servicemen screaming, and me, being not too bright, run *towards* the screaming. Just in time to see the thing bounce into a wall and disipate a la T2 materializing. So there must be multiple ways for these things to form (no silicon in **my** fireball)if they got it right....
  • They had someone on Radio 4's Today program this morning explaining this - may have been one of the scientists concerned but I'm not too sure, I wasn't very awake :)

    Anyway, that's pretty much the explanation they gave, about it forming on the inside. It's a similar phenomena but not the same, so explaining why they go in a straight line in planes.

    Greg
  • Wow - my post gets moderated DOWN to a zero for sharing my experience of another type of electrically oriented fireball, and this "If you really must know the truth, ball lightning is nothing but fire elementals summoned by level 5 warlocks. They cost 100 spell points, that's why they are so rare. See, my explanation is just as good, go get a real job." gets moderated UP. Are moderators a bunch of elitist fucks trying to discourage well-intended participation, or am I missing something? (of course, this will get moderated down as well, becasue I have also learned they don't like you to ask questions on here)
  • I'll never forget my first sailing trip, it was off the cost of florida in a 100 foot schooner, I was down in the galley when I heard my dad call me up on the deck, now this was at night probly close to midnight, and the entire deck was light up like you wouldn't bealive, the mast looked like it was glowing, ever since then i've loved sail boats. St. elmo's fire is deffinatly cool.

    Gentleman, you can't fight in here, this is the war room..
  • Kryptonians can only fly on Earth. Superman receives his superpowers from the Sun's yellow light.
    --
    "I was a fool to think I could dream as a normal man."
  • I think what makes this theory a lil more exciting is that silicon actually can burn at the proper luminance and length times of a ball lightnin.

    JA
  • The above link is really quite cool - it goes to Lightning on Demand: "Specialists in large-scale Tesla Coils, Lorentz Guns and other interesting high pulsed-power devices".

    Lots of pretty pictures of people getting struck by lightning (well, not quite, and it's not at all gruesome - have a look).

    ...j

  • They should work on the Marfa lights (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Marfa Texas
    been seeing them for over 100 years
    but they are really just car lights

    CAR LIGHTS FROM HELL!
  • wow, maybe you SHOULD HAVE CHECKED TO SEE IF THIS POSTER MATCHED THE ORIGINAL begore you began talking smack.
  • One reason ball lightning is important is that it is a naturally stable plasma structure. The multi-billon multi-decade attempt to contain plasmas for fusion artifically has failed. A friend of mine, and a fellow plasma physicist, Paul Koloc, is producing ball lightning in his garage lab in White Oak Md. He uses no silicon. (The balls do pick up copper from the electrodes) He has written a number of papers on it.

    See See http://www.google.com/search?q=paul+koloc" for some references.

    The balls probably have a stucture similar to the structure of the plasmas rings in the TRISOPS experiment that I worked on 25 years ago. Dan Wells was the principal investigator. This experiment's funding was dropped because it conflicted with the then current emphasis on the Tokamak. Since then the Tokamak program has turned into an expensive white elephant. Last year, on a NASA grant, the experiment was moved from its home at the University of Miami to Lanham MD and reassembled. It is still to early to have any results.

    See http://www.aps.org/BAPSDPP98/abs/S3 2 00.html#SG4S.062for more information . There are efforts to raise more funds to continue research into both efforts. Joe Davidson

  • Just because lightning doesn't strike nearby doesn't mean there is not enough energy. A little known phenomenon(SP?) concerning lightning is that it passes through a plasma chamber put up by the earth. The name of these excapes me right now. Multiple chambers are put out like fingers sometimes miles from eachother. They have just as much energy as lightning but only exsist for less than a second and only the first few feet are visible.

    I saw one once. It appeared just above a tree and it was a super bright pink, almost white. Lightning struck at almost the same instant about 1/2 mile away.

  • Whaaat?

    I've never heard of such a thing. Can you explain it a bit more? Any links to more explanations?

  • If the scientists couldn't verify their hypothesis by actually making ball lightning, it makes me believe that they are too enamored of their own ideas to give them up.

    Never let the facts get in the way of a good theory.
    Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
  • Nicola Tesla, who invented the polyphase system of alternating current we all depend on today, used to create balls of lightning to amuse dinner guests like Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain). The trick to creating them may be buried somewhere in his notes, but last I heard they were classified as secret by the US government apon his death.
  • Oh, man! A scientific opportunity lost! If you had only picked up your spectrometer, you could have made the measurements necessary to prove or disprove this theory. You could have been the youngest person to win the Nobel Prize. Too bad.

    Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
  • The charge comes up from the ground, but it doesn't have mechanical force. You're right, too "pat".

    I tend to agree with the concensus that it's static electricity. The problem with that argument is, what makes the atmosphere in that location static-electricly charged? From the reports I've heard, it tends to happen in or around old houses the most. I wonder if there might be a connection with the fact that many *old* houses weren't technically connected to an earth ground. This could account for the massive build-up of static. It would also apply in aircraft that have lost the effectiveness of their anti-static wicks.

  • I hate to burst your bubble, but ball lightning is a credible phenomenon. Back when I was in college I had a research project going collecting reports, to look for an object that had been hit by ball lightning and analyze it. I never found something, because all the reports were too old, but reports tended to be associated way more with lightning storms than drunkedness.


    At any rate, I don't think thisexplanation explains it. Two theories I think are more viable are the silicaceous material one are Paul Koloc's plasma theory (it's rather specific) and Piotr Kapitsa's microwave standing wave theory (which I think only applies to a small number of ball lightning phenomenon; it may be that there are multiple causes).


    I also just remembered that the silicaceous material theory doesn't explain the related phenomenon of bead lightning and the like, and when bead lightning spawns ball lightning.


  • Congressional ethics?
  • I've read other accounts of people making ball lightning in the microwave. I'm skeptical as to whether this is the same kind of phenomenon (that drunken hicks see after they've been struck by lighning), but I'm even more skeptical about burning chains of silicon passing through microscopic cracks while retaning a spherical shape.
  • In Man Out Of Time, it's said that he would produce a smallish "fireball" out of thin air as a parlor trick when visitors came by the lab (Note: Tesla's lab was the model for the classic "mad scientist" lab from every movie in the 30's.).

    People aren't sure what it really was, but it could have been ball lightning, or some kind of plasma effect. Or something else enterely, we really don't know.

    Jon
  • "Many things in nature..."

    Like the reptilian-sized brain rattling inside your skull?
  • Hardly obscure.
  • This just goes to show you that lightning is predominantly male.
    How often have you seen "boob" lightning?
  • Apparently, you and I are two of the few people who actually read the article before posting senseless crap.
    When they are actually able to recreate the effects of ball lightning in the lab, then I'll be mighty impressed.
    BTW, methinks you should be moderated to 3:OnTopic.
  • The name of the "fingers" is called streamers. Sorry I can't provide better information. I have limited time. A breif explination is here...
    A breif description [nasa.gov]

    some documentation which references steamer here.. Abstract to a more detailed research paper [nasa.gov] - search for streamer

    I origionally learnd this from the discovery channel about 4 years ago. It was a cool program about lightning. They showd 1 picture of a streamer. They said that it was probably the only one to exsist.

  • It was probably on the way to the bathroom - I know storms do that to me. :)

    Az
  • Please moderate this up to the level of my Anonymous Coward post (above)

    Some friends have convinced me that if I really want to hear about similar sightings, I need to provide contact info, rather than expecting reports to be posted here. Others may be as hesitant as I was to present unsubstantiable reports.

    I originally debated whether to post without bonus points (since it is merely an anecdote, rather than a reasoned comment) or as an AC. I guess I made the wrong choice (hey, it was 5:30 am here!) since the original post was moderated up +5 in the next several hours, yet no replies were posted

    I have created a hotmail address for this correspondence: burnedrectifier@hotmail.com [mailto]

    Your report will not be shared (or, if you prefer, even abstracted) without your consent
  • I was under the impression that the rash of "fireballs" (green, orange, blue, shifting colors) that have been sighted around the globe lately were actually the manifest souls of Others or of Shamen in this world working out-of-body.

    Well, I don't know, but that's what they tell me.

    And don't ask who They is.
  • One of the hopes for understanding ball lightening that I've seen bandied about was that it might lead to advancements in containing fusion reactions and lead to fusion power plants. A burning ball of silicon hardly seems as relevant.
  • The discovery of biological evolution and common descent invalidated the idea of life forms that were just "poofed" here instantaneously

    Unless of course you live in Kansas....

  • "Stop talking nonsense and drink your blue milk. You boys and your talk of outer-space. It kills me!"

  • My little 8-yr-old cousin and his friend saw two fireballs going back and forth, chasing each other in his backyard, the same day that the reports below were taken - it was midafternoon, not night. They were hovering above the treetops, and then they shot off in opposite directions. No joke. This is supposedly what "St Elmo's Fire"s are - but I have no idea what Ally Sheedy has to do with this...

    http://www.nwlink.com/~ufocntr/CB980422.html

    Here's an index of Fireball reports to the National UFO Reporting Center.

    http://www.ufocenter.com/ndxsFireball.html
  • Give these experiments a TRY! Even if they AREN'T ball lightning, what you will see will be worth it. Just a simple lit match stuck in a pink eraser in a microwave set on high for a minute, the effects are AMAZING. Of course, if you happen to hate the smell of ozone, then you may not like it...
  • Uh, forgot to make my links hot. C'est la guerre.

    Blue-green fireball sightings over Washington [nwlink.com]

    Here's an index of Fireball reports [ufocenter.com] at the National UFO Reporting Center.

  • You know computers and scalability... Think big, 5 orders of magnitude larger. There are scalability problems with rock experiments, it aint all heard near the ground surface.
    Quakes usually originate over a km deep (12km in general for the big San Andreas ones). Second is that most don't break the ground surface, or even come near it. So the plasma would need to migrate to the surface wiithout solidifing (yea right).

    Ball lightening near faults is probably a related to natural gas escaping to the sruface rapidly, and going off. Gound shakes, pockets get relseased, and somehow light. Happens. I've talked to a couple of officers who saw it.

    You know earthquakes occur within 6 hours of a high tide, too.

  • I guess this is here to stay until it gets disproved, but I personally am skeptical of this example.

    I'm curious about how they explain the high altitude ball lightning. What I've seen on it (from a Nova, a while back I think) the majority of ball lightning was happening at very high altitudes in the very tops of huge cumulo-nimbus (thunderheads) clouds. Scientists were observing them with those storm planes - and trying to recreate it in the lab. In what I saw, they were passing the huge impulses of juice through ceramic tile. It didn't always work, though - and they made a lot of tiles explode/break into two.

    I need to learn more about electricity.

  • "us" is actually the correct word in that context. Just like "him and me" instead of "he and I" is correct when used as an object.

    --
  • No, but all of us eat Vivarin like it's popcorn.
  • A few years ago in my neighbourhood (a quiet suburb of London) a house was supposedly hit by ball lightning. There are apparently only a handful of verified hits a year so I decided to check it out. The place was crawling with forensic type bods, as it had passed through a window and flash burnt the bedroom. (no one was injured luckily). This would seem to agree with the report saying heat was generated. I'm a gnu, how about you? The gnicest piece of gnature in the zoo!
  • And why exactly are we trying to hump doorknobs on cold winter days?

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"When the going gets tough, the tough get empirical." -- Jon Carroll

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