5 ms·

Relativistic-microwave theory of ball lightning

mangeletti 10y ago
I witnessed what I think was ball lightning in my front yard as a kid, here in South Florida where lightning storms are a +thrice weekly event. What happened was that lightning struck the ground at the edge of our yard while we were waiting at the front door for the rain to slow (so we could get to the car). I jerked my head to the right because of course the sound and flash scared the heck out of me, and right as I looked there was what looked like a glowing ball of electricity, the size of a beach ball, just above the ground, for what seemed like a few seconds.
- cfontes 10y ago
  Nice, maybe this happens on the sky when it's a Earth -> Cloud lighting, which is a lot less common from what I've read.
rubidium 10y ago
This is the reference 6 of the spectrum recording of ball lightning from 2012: http://physics.aps.org/articles/v7/5 http://physics.aps.org/articles/v7/5 Impressive that the model has "passed all the tests" for an acceptable theory of the origin of ball lightning.
Aelinsaar 10y ago
This sounds a bit like the process that is believed to lead to terrestrial gamma ray bursts in the upper atmosphere, I believe.
senthil_rajasek 10y ago
disappointed that there is no mention of Terminator.
- fsloth 10y ago
  Movies and science are - at least to me - in different aesthetic compartments.
cmenge 10y ago
I read "lightsabers are totally possible". Where can I preorder?
- stcredzero 10y ago
  That would be more like light-flails or light-maces.
  - macintux 10y ago
    I need a lightsaber to keep my jungle of a yard under control. Would a light-flail do the trick?
    - stcredzero 10y ago
      Flame thrower. It's more reliable and cost-effective tech.
breck 10y ago
nit: would be helpful if the abstract or introduction gave numbers on how frequently ball lightning occurs, instead of just saying "rare". Is it 1 in 1,000 rare or 1 in a billion rare? From some Googling, there are 8M lightning strikes per day on earth, so say about 3.5B strikes per year. Let's say 3% of those strikes are in populated areas. So ~250,000 lightning strikes per day in populated areas. In the past 5 years, that is ~500M lightning strikes in populated areas. Let's say that there's at least one person or video camera filming the sky during 20% of those strikes. Given we only have 1 video of marginal quality of ball lightning, that makes 1 in a 100M strikes a reasonable guess. But that also makes me think it really could just be 0 and eye witness accounts are just some visual misperception.
- astrodust 10y ago
  There's no way to compute an approximation here since reports of ball lightning are so infrequent. "Populated area" is somewhat subjective here since those that live in a rural, open area, especially the prairies, are able to observe more lightning activity. Most of the reports that I've read about involve those living in the country where the artifact of the strike, the resulting ball, can be readily observed. I'd read about a laboratory trying to recreate this phenomenon using submarine batteries and were more successful in blowing the roof off the warehouse than creating ball lightning.
davesque 10y ago
Not an expert but it seems neat that their model apparently explains many known properties of the phenomenon.
PaulHoule 10y ago
My summary is that if I see a ball lightning coming, I'm going to run.
chmike 10y ago
The theory of Prof. Aguste Meessen published well before Wu's article in Nature already explains ball lightning as a plasma bubble [1]. It is surprizing that Wu didn't reference this work in its introductory review. In its most simple form the thin layer of the bubble is a plasma made of electrons oscillating radially. Like soap bubbles, a plasma bubble may have multiple ecapsulated bubbles. A plasma ball is a dynamic system at an equilibrum using ions like ozone as energy source. The plasma ball will follow ions gradient. It explains why lightning balls may follow complex path like circling in a room and suddently going through a cheminey or a key hole. He explains why plasma balls can traverse windows which are electrical and chemical reaction insulators. This theory is now ready to be tested experimentally. [1] http://www.meessen.net/AMeessen/BL-Theory.pdf http://www.meessen.net/AMeessen/BL-Theory.pdf
- beevai142 10y ago
  Note that Wu's article is in Scientific Reports, not Nature. SR is far lower in the "prestige rank" of physics journals, and it's far easier to get papers accepted there, so omissions are more likely. On the other hand, Meessen's paper appears to be unpublished (or according to google scholar, maybe published in a predatory open access journal) --- and it raises some red flags that the author didn't want to / couldn't get it published via standard channels. Not planning to read it, but critical eye may be warranted.
  - drjesusphd 10y ago
    A critical eye is always warranted, but the prestige of a journal has no bearing on the correctness of the claim. This attitude is harmful to science. Perhaps his analysis is incorrect or lacking somehow, but that's not the argument you make.
    - beevai142 10y ago
      Generally speaking, if a paper is published in a bad journal, it often means it was submitted first also to other journals, but rejected by reviewers. Hence, it is more likely there's something wrong with it. Reading papers takes time, so it is useful to be aware beforehand of how likely the time is well spent. How is it in this specific case is then a different question. (Predatory open access is bad --- publishing work on your own website OTOH is fairly neutral.)
InclinedPlane 10y ago
tl;dr: Under the right conditions the step leader of a lightning strike can have a small bunch of electrons out in front of the rest of the tip, and the extremely strong electrostatic forces at play can then accelerate that bunch ahead of the tip to relativistic velocities. The bunch then hits the ground and releases an intensely strong (hundreds of gigawatts) coherent microwave radiation pulse. Also under the right conditions this microwave pulse can get trapped as a standing wave inside of a plasma bubble which it maintains through its own energy, lasting for several seconds. Scientists should be able to test this theory and create ball lightning artificially if they can build microwave devices in the 100 GW range.

I witnessed what I think was ball lightning in my front yard as a kid, here in South Florida where lightning storms are a +thrice weekly event. What happened was that lightning struck the ground at the edge of our yard while we were waiting at the front door for the rain to slow (so we could get to the car). I jerked my head to the right because of course the sound and flash scared the heck out of me, and right as I looked there was what looked like a glowing ball of electricity, the size of a beach ball, just above the ground, for what seemed like a few seconds.

cfontes 10y ago
Nice, maybe this happens on the sky when it's a Earth -> Cloud lighting, which is a lot less common from what I've read.

rubidium 10y ago

This is the reference 6 of the spectrum recording of ball lightning from 2012: http://physics.aps.org/articles/v7/5 http://physics.aps.org/articles/v7/5 Impressive that the model has "passed all the tests" for an acceptable theory of the origin of ball lightning.

Aelinsaar 10y ago

This sounds a bit like the process that is believed to lead to terrestrial gamma ray bursts in the upper atmosphere, I believe.

senthil_rajasek 10y ago

disappointed that there is no mention of Terminator.

fsloth 10y ago
Movies and science are - at least to me - in different aesthetic compartments.

cmenge 10y ago

I read "lightsabers are totally possible". Where can I preorder?

stcredzero 10y ago
That would be more like light-flails or light-maces.
- macintux 10y ago
  I need a lightsaber to keep my jungle of a yard under control. Would a light-flail do the trick?
  - stcredzero 10y ago
    Flame thrower. It's more reliable and cost-effective tech.

breck 10y ago

nit: would be helpful if the abstract or introduction gave numbers on how frequently ball lightning occurs, instead of just saying "rare". Is it 1 in 1,000 rare or 1 in a billion rare? From some Googling, there are 8M lightning strikes per day on earth, so say about 3.5B strikes per year. Let's say 3% of those strikes are in populated areas. So ~250,000 lightning strikes per day in populated areas. In the past 5 years, that is ~500M lightning strikes in populated areas. Let's say that there's at least one person or video camera filming the sky during 20% of those strikes. Given we only have 1 video of marginal quality of ball lightning, that makes 1 in a 100M strikes a reasonable guess. But that also makes me think it really could just be 0 and eye witness accounts are just some visual misperception.

astrodust 10y ago
There's no way to compute an approximation here since reports of ball lightning are so infrequent. "Populated area" is somewhat subjective here since those that live in a rural, open area, especially the prairies, are able to observe more lightning activity. Most of the reports that I've read about involve those living in the country where the artifact of the strike, the resulting ball, can be readily observed. I'd read about a laboratory trying to recreate this phenomenon using submarine batteries and were more successful in blowing the roof off the warehouse than creating ball lightning.

davesque 10y ago

Not an expert but it seems neat that their model apparently explains many known properties of the phenomenon.

PaulHoule 10y ago

My summary is that if I see a ball lightning coming, I'm going to run.

chmike 10y ago

The theory of Prof. Aguste Meessen published well before Wu's article in Nature already explains ball lightning as a plasma bubble [1]. It is surprizing that Wu didn't reference this work in its introductory review. In its most simple form the thin layer of the bubble is a plasma made of electrons oscillating radially. Like soap bubbles, a plasma bubble may have multiple ecapsulated bubbles. A plasma ball is a dynamic system at an equilibrum using ions like ozone as energy source. The plasma ball will follow ions gradient. It explains why lightning balls may follow complex path like circling in a room and suddently going through a cheminey or a key hole. He explains why plasma balls can traverse windows which are electrical and chemical reaction insulators. This theory is now ready to be tested experimentally. [1] http://www.meessen.net/AMeessen/BL-Theory.pdf http://www.meessen.net/AMeessen/BL-Theory.pdf

beevai142 10y ago
Note that Wu's article is in Scientific Reports, not Nature. SR is far lower in the "prestige rank" of physics journals, and it's far easier to get papers accepted there, so omissions are more likely. On the other hand, Meessen's paper appears to be unpublished (or according to google scholar, maybe published in a predatory open access journal) --- and it raises some red flags that the author didn't want to / couldn't get it published via standard channels. Not planning to read it, but critical eye may be warranted.
- drjesusphd 10y ago
  A critical eye is always warranted, but the prestige of a journal has no bearing on the correctness of the claim. This attitude is harmful to science. Perhaps his analysis is incorrect or lacking somehow, but that's not the argument you make.
  - beevai142 10y ago
    Generally speaking, if a paper is published in a bad journal, it often means it was submitted first also to other journals, but rejected by reviewers. Hence, it is more likely there's something wrong with it. Reading papers takes time, so it is useful to be aware beforehand of how likely the time is well spent. How is it in this specific case is then a different question. (Predatory open access is bad --- publishing work on your own website OTOH is fairly neutral.)

InclinedPlane 10y ago

tl;dr: Under the right conditions the step leader of a lightning strike can have a small bunch of electrons out in front of the rest of the tip, and the extremely strong electrostatic forces at play can then accelerate that bunch ahead of the tip to relativistic velocities. The bunch then hits the ground and releases an intensely strong (hundreds of gigawatts) coherent microwave radiation pulse. Also under the right conditions this microwave pulse can get trapped as a standing wave inside of a plasma bubble which it maintains through its own energy, lasting for several seconds. Scientists should be able to test this theory and create ball lightning artificially if they can build microwave devices in the 100 GW range.