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Ball Lightning Explained?
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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Wow. I can't believe I just made a Magic: The Gathering reference. I deserve to be modified into the stone age.
Now if I can just figure out how to make my PDA into an Abrahamson generator, I can really get even . . .
And here all along I was told it was from angels farting.
-dj
closet Xena fan(atic)
Fuck Slashdot
ball, heat, what else?
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
# Hack the planet, it's important.
Geez Rob, the title of this article is just begging for AC abuse. Not a need for material with all the crap that gets posted around here already.
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.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Ball Lightning
22 seconds between post and moderation.
any by the way i was a TROLL. its actually VERY on topic
learn to moderate.
and lick my shweaty balls
-shweaty balls guy fully supports naked and petrified guy, but don knotts guy needs to go fuck himself-
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?
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...
"There are no shortcuts to any place worth going."
"Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work." -Flaubert
-- Laugh. It's funny.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
STAR (as in hot young actress) WARS
a story of tender love
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
two random open source developers enter the cat-walk holding natalie portman in chains.
random open source developer #1: this is the hot young actress who surrendered to us. although she denies it, i believe there may be more of them and i request permission to conduct a search of the area. she was armed only with this.
the random open source developer hands open source man a spray-can of mace.
open source man: good work coder. leave us. conduct your search and bring her companions to me.
the random open source developers leave.
open source man: esr has been expecting you.
natalie portman: i know, president.
open source man: so... you've accepted the truth!
natalie portman: i've accepted the truth that you were once anonymous coward... president of my fan club.
open source man: that name no longer holds any meaning for me!
natalie portman: it's the name of your true self. you've only forgotten. i know there is good in you! esr hasn't driven it from you fully! that was why you couldn't bludgeon me. that's why you won't bring me to esr now.
open source man seems distracted by natalie's firm buttocks.
open source man: i see your figure has filled out. your development is complete. indeed you are alluring as esr has forseen.
natalie is unsure of what open source man plans on doing. she is a bit nervous.
natalie portman: come with me.
open source man: my girlfriend once thought as you do. you don't know the power of open source! i must obey esr!
natalie portman: i will not be open sourced. and you will be forced to bludgeon me with the open source gnu sausage.
open source man: if that is your destiny...
natalie portman: search your feelings, anonymous. you can't do this! i feel the conflict within you! let go of your lust!
open source man: it is too late for me, natalie.
open source man motions for an open source developer.
open source man: esr will show you the true nature of open source. he is your master now!
dissappointed, natalie nods her head.
natalie portman: then the president of my fan club is truly dead.
as the open source developer takes natalie away, open source man gazes longingly at her buttocks. he turns to look out the window, harkening back to his innocent youth, when he was president of the natalie portman fan-club. he sighs, deeply.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
open source man and natalie portman enter esr's throne-room. esr is sitting in a chair at the top of a platform. open source man and natalie portman approach.
esr: welcome, hot young actress, i've been expecting you. you'll no longer need those.
esr waves a finger and natalie's hand-cuffs fall off.
esr: guards... leave us.
the gaurds leave.
esr: i am looking forward to completing your sexual development. in time, you will call me master.
natalie portman: you're gravely mistaken. you won't open source me.
esr: oh no, my hot young actress, you will find it is you who are mistaken... about a great many things.
open source man: her can of mace.
esr: ah yes. a hot young actresses weapon. much like the ones that have been used on me. by now you must know your old fan-club president can never be turned from the open-source side. so will it be with you.
natalie portman: you're wrong. soon i'll be dead and you with me.
esr: laughs. perhaps you refer to the imminent attack of your fans. yes. i assure you, we are quite safe from your fans here.
natalie portman: your overconfidence is your weakness.
esr: your faith in your fans is yours.
open source man: it is pointless to resist, natalie.
esr: everything that has transpired has done so according to my design. your fans are walking into a trap. it was i who allowed the natalie portman fan club to know the location of the code generator. i assure you, it is quite safe from your pitiful little band. an entire legion of my best coders await them. oh... i'm afraid the sendmail daemon will be quite operational when your fans arrive!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
natalie portman is hiding in a room full of old ibm mainframes. open source man is trying to locate her.
open source man: you cannot hide forever, natalie.
natalie portman: i will not be open sourced.
open source man: give yourself to the open source community. it is the only way you can save your friends.
natalie portman strains to contain her thoughts.
open source man: ah yes, your thoughts betray you. your feelings for them are strong. especially for... sister. so... you have a twin sister! now your feelings have betrayed her too. your parents were wise to hide her from me. now their failure is complete! if you will not be open sourced, then perhaps she will!
natalie portman jumps out from behind a mainframe, wielding a can of mace. she begins beating open source man back with it.
natalie portman: noooooooo!
natalie portman sprays open source man in the face with the self-protection spray. he crumples to the ground, holding his arm out to protect his face from another attack.
natalie portman is crazed with the power of open source.
esr cackles evilly as he steps down from his platform toward natalie.
esr: good. good! your open-sourcedness has made you powerful. now, release your sexuality and take open source man's place at my side.
natalie looks down at the fallen open source man, breathing heavily as his sinuses sting from the mace. she harkens back to her youthful obsession with a hot young actor.
natalie portman: never. i'll never turn to the open source side. you failed your highness. i am chaste, like open source man before me!
esr: so be it, closed-source girl. if you will not be open sourced, then you will be bludgeoned with the open source sausage!
esr grabs a giant sausage with a taxidermied gnu's head mounted on the end of it. he begins to beat natalie with it.
esr: hot young actress... only now, at the end, do you understand! you have paid the price for your lack of vision!
esr thrashes some more... open source man shakes off the mace.
esr: your hot young femininity is no match for the power of open source!
esr beats natalie again. open source man pulls himself to his feet and stands next to esr.
esr: and now, young portman, you will feel the full wrath of the gnu!
natalie portman screams in horror as esr thrashes her harder.
natalie portman: aaaargghghghghgh! open source man! please! help me!
open source man looks fondly open natalie's firm young buttocks. he looks at esr. with a final surge of passion for the hot young actress, open source man lifts esr over his head and carries him to the window. open source man tosses esr into the blackness of night, but not before esr gets several good whacks in with the open source sausage.
open source man collapses to the floor. natalie portman crawls over to him and holds his head gently in her arms...
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
natalie portman drags open source man through the old warehouse full of ibm mainframes and collected esr writings. the building is about to collapse from the attack of the natalie portman fan-club alliance. natalie is trying to reach a cart to drive her and open source man out to safety.
open source man: natalie, help me take these pants off.
natalie portman: but you'll make a mess all over the floor!
open source man: nothing can stop that now. just for once, let me love you with my own genitalia.
natalie nods in agreement. she removes open source man's pants. he smiles with relief.
open source man: now... go. leave me!
natalie portman: i'll not leave you. i've got to let you open source me!
open source man: you already have! you were hot! you were hot, natalie! tell your sister, you were ho...
with that, open source man slips away into a coma of bliss. filled with sorrow and pity, natalie takes one last look at the exposed genitalia. the warehouse begins to crumble. natalie quickly drags open source man's carcass onto the cart and escapes before the building collapses.
natalie reaches the street-corner. she spots her parents waiting to pick her up as designated. she dumps open source man onto the sidewalk, under a power line. she scribbles her phone number on a piece of paper and lays it on his chest. as she walks away, the tremors from the crumbling of the warehouse cause the power line to snap. it lands on open source man and ignites him. wistfully, natalie watches as he burns to a crisp.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
natalie portman is at a party with her twin sister and the members of the fan-club. she harkens back to the previous week when open source man saved her. she looks out the window... open source man's blue-auraed spirit is standing in the front lawn, naked and aroused, warmly smiling at her. natalie smiles back before rejoining her friends...
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
the end.
thank you.
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.
This sig is false.
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.
Once it's been replicated in the lab, ball lightning weapons systems are a very real possibility. That stuff has killed a lot of people over the years.
someone allready said that.
next ?
MORRRTALLLL KOMMMMBATTTTTT
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.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
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 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"
This
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
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
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!)
-- Slashdot sucks.
i'm waiting for one of those ball lightings to go though my heart.
btw, which is better, ball lighting go thru body or spontaneous combustion?
Xah
http://Xahlee.org/
Right here
:-)
It's not the actual journal report, but a summary for civilians
--
Infuriate left and right
All I need is 57 ninjas and 2000 pancakes
Ain't science grand!!!!!
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.
These comments and opinions are mine and mine alone, although they shouldn't be.
My dad has written a lot of papers on ball lightning, some are available here.
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.
-Docvert converts MSWord to OpenDocument, clean HTML
According to him, soon after I was born our home planet, Krypton, a bright yellowish white planet. was under attack by the Ball Lighning people from Endor, Strange stuff. My father put me in a space ship and sent me to earth just before Krypton was destroyed.
I would love to see my story proven true.
Please send money for my research.
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
--
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join me and together we will rule the universe.
It'll be better for all of us.
OINK
Holy shit like this is the first time anyone has been redundant.
You are such a cock.
It was overflow from the load I pumped up your big hole.
OINK BIYAAACHT...
Look ma there are fish outside the window.
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
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
www.haidacarver.com
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.
Ignore Alien Orders
All I need to make ball lightning is a little bit 'o pr0n
sludgie
all rights reserved, all wrongs reversed
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...
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
...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
say, that's interesting. i have often wondered about the 'passing through windows' thing... think that might be causing the 'blue screens'?
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.
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 !
THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
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...
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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.
Only 1? I thought dirty jokes were funny too... Bloody prudes.
Everyone knows ball lighting is created by a beowulf cluster of robotic monkeys using malicious html tags whilst tapping the latest keg of WINE which is labeled CVS and popping a few CERTs for freshness. They are also known for creating the terribly mysterious and obfuscated C code which has been codenamed win2k. Who knows what crazy stunts these self-proclaimed "gods" will pull next!
I was still very much gay. I am such a flaming homosexual.
Aren't AOL involved somehow?
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.
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?
Whoops! Meant to do that anonyomously.
Ah well... perhaps ball lightning is caused by burning karma!
Well, if it ever gets built, the "largest Tesla Coil system that is theoretically and practically possible" 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) 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 that was asked, and here is a link to the discussion 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!!
Enjoy
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....
mas cerveza, por favor politically incorrect stu
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..
who sez death can't be funny....www.endlesssorrow.com
That was hilarious, you must save these and post them somewhere where they'll be saved for eternity.
George
Somebody burn this guy's karma bad. He doesn't deserve a +2 bonus.
Marfa Texas
been seeing them for over 100 years
but they are really just car lights
CAR LIGHTS FROM HELL!
I'll kick it's ass with my mewtwo.
I usually waive the +2. Besides, only the diagonal post was mine, it was a moment of madness caused by lack of caffeine and boredom!
;)
FORGIVE ME, I BESEECH YOU!
And so's my wife!
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
can scientist explain the hot grits on my balls? thank you.
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
Anomalous: deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Canard: a false or unfounded repor
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.
Lighning is easy enough to controll. Just equip the right materia and make sure to use a weapon with double growth.
"I hate the people so much. If only they'd elect me. Then I'd show 'em." (Home Simpson)
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.
(currently testing something about signatures here)
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
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
This just goes to show you that lightning is predominantly male.
How often have you seen "boob" lightning?
The above post is an editorial, the poster cannot and will not be held responsible for all or in part for it's contents
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
Your report will not be shared (or, if you prefer, even abstracted) without your consent
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
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.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
Its Jeezus! Jeezus is the reeson fore the seeson and the reeson fore ball lighnin. Wen yu see ball lightnin, ya no that Jeezus is sendin yu a sine. Praiz Jeezus!
"Stop talking nonsense and drink your blue milk. You boys and your talk of outer-space. It kills me!"
**>>BELCH
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...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Blue-green fireball sightings over Washington
Here's an index of Fireball reports 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.
--
Win dain a lotica, en vai tu ri silota
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!
This was also in NewScientist Magazine today (which probably explains why the bbc picked up on it).
Unfortunately it is only in the printed edition and not on the website.
Laurence
nt
Now would you look at that, a 10th grader just made sense out of a mystery that has been around for thousands of years just because he was reading /. It really does make you smarter.
If you want my respect, give it first...
If you don't want my respect, expect mine before you give it.
This got moderated to Flamebait? Aw man it must be an election year...
Interesting, but I believe Tesla already gave relatively clear instructions on how to generate ball lightning back in 1902 (patented 1914) .. from page 2 of this patent:
.. a ball of fire might break out and destroy support F or anything else in the way .. The accident is apt to occur when, the transmitting circuit being strongly excited, the impressed oscillations upon it are caused, in any manner more or less sudden, to be more rapid than the free oscillations. It is therefore advisable to begin the adjustments with feeble and somewhat slower impressed oscillations, strengthening and quickening them gradually, until the apparatus has been brought under perfect control."
.. burning tree stump, ash, etc) They noted that the balls followed the streamers (some streamers barely visible) and if struck by multiple streamers, the balls would grow in size. They were able to produce balls about the size of a ping-pong ball with a 3.2kW generator, the above circuit, and a candle.
.je
".. if the points of maximum pressure should be shifted
With this and more supporting evidence from Tesla's "Colorado Spring Notes", I believe that the Corum brothers produced this same effect in Ohio back in 1988. They noted that ball lightning could be produced from this sort of circuit arrangement (2 secondary coils of differing frequencies connected to the same primary with the higher frequency coil impressing upon the lower), and also noted that larger balls could be produced by seeding them with some sort of hydrocarbon (as might be kicked up after a lightning strike
It would seem to follow that the differing electrical properties of certain materials (Tesla seemed to prefer Tungsten) would make them more or less favorable to electrical exicitation, and Silicon seems to hold some interesting properties. It's good to see a report that's finally starting to catch up with what has already been done, documented, and patented. The publicity is good too, I guess. Oh, btw, the Corum brothers were never able to drum up enough understanding of their research to merit proper credit (sound familiar?)
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"The Internet? Too much noise, not enough signal" -- D Edwards
I've heard that ball lightnight has been created before in the laboratory. They used intense microwave radiation...has anyone else heard this?