November 15, 2010
Lightning
slowed down 300 times. The whole video happened in a third of a second.
There is a lot going on. What are the very short flashes? Are they maybe caused by the trails of cosmic ionizing radiation? Why does the long sideways strike burn slowly along like a rocket? Then upward "leaders". And repeated strikes along the same path. It's magic stuff to me.
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How Lightning Works describes the steps in the process in eleven brief sections/pages. Although I do wonder how many monkeys will look at all of 'em.
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I just did, bees, so thank you for the link. During my interview for the college I ended up attending, I compared literary criticism to a slow-motion film of a bolt of lightning (in that it was informative but, in a way, lessened the impact). I wasn't expecting the real thing to be that exciting! Maybe I should write to my old tutors and apologise?
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THAT was awesome. Thanks ThinksTwice
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Magic stuff indeed! And that's a great explanation of how it works too.
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Thanks for the links, TT and Bees. I had a stormy lightning experience in the mountains on an endurance ride which included the smell of ozone, static electricity that made the horse's mane's and our hair stand up, and the weird blue glow described in Bee's links. With lightning striking all around us, I'm not ashamed to say that I peed my pants (just a little.)