From the American Chemical Society
New insights into the 1-in-a-million lightning called ‘ball lightning’
One of the rare scientific reports on the rarest form of lightning — ball lightning — describes better ways of producing this mysterious phenomenon under the modern laboratory conditions needed to explain it.
The new study on a phenomenon that puzzled and perplexed the likes of Aristotle 2,300 years ago and Nikola Tesla a century ago appears in ACS’ The Journal of Physical Chemistry A.
C. Michael Lindsay and colleagues explain that ball lightning consists of a floating, glowing ball that may drift eerily through the sky and then explode violently, sometimes injuring people and damaging buildings. The balls can range in size from a garden pea to globes several feet in diameter and glow for up to 10 seconds. Since it occurs only once in every million lightning bolts, natural ball lightning cannot be studied with scientific instruments. Like Tesla in 1900, Lindsay and colleagues did their research by producing artificial ball lightning in the laboratory.
They describe experiments that led to more effective ways of making ball lightning, essential for further insights into the phenomenon, and techniques that made the fireball last longer so that observations could continue. They developed a special video technique that reveals more information than ever before about the structure of the lightning balls and how they move.
The authors acknowledge funding from the Small Grant Program of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
“Blob lightning” would be more descriptive!
Watched one float along a barbed wire fence. Lasted way more than 10 seconds.Finally “sat” on the top wire and “went out”.NEAT!
Wow – I witnessed it back in about 1966 – in 7th or 8th grade. At the time lived in No LA. Late afternoon, had a wicked thunderstorm going on. Was laying on my bed, watching it out the window, when way across the football field (elementary school adjoined our lot) the ball lightening appeared to interact with a utility pole on the far side. Absolutely bizarre. The balls of electricity seemed to stream in an ever interacting line from the sky to the pole (difficult to say which way it was traveling) – then I seem to remember a flash — and then numerous balls were in the air around the impact for a split second – floating around.
Not a soul believed me. Some 30-40 years later I read about it, and said, gosh darn it – that’s what I saw.
Fantastic.
I saw one in 1970. These are sometimes called ‘earthquake lights’ aren’t they?
I also saw it once as a kid, about football sized floating just above floor height it followed the wall around a ninety degree corner and at the next corner after a short pause it disappeared. That said not convinced about reproducing it in a lab, that photo looks well dodgy. Liked the ACS site though. Molecule of the week indeed 🙂 Mine would be C2H5OH but they’ve probably done that already.
I was an airline pilot for 35 years. I flew with several pilots from WW2 that experienced ball lighting. Most of them saw the ball start in the cockpit and roll down the aisle and exit at the rear of the aircraft. It seems that this was the common story among the older pilots. This must have been scary for them and the passengers. I never saw this type of occurrence but lots of static electricity that jumped from the a/c to clouds and a few actual lightning strikes.
I had experienced ball lightning in 1979. It came down and followed in the turbulence of the vehicle ahead of me for perhaps 10 seconds then angled off into the brush and disappeared. A little larger than a basketball and quite bright, less than 50 feet in front of my car.
If they don’t know what ball lightning actually is, then how do they know what they are creating in the lab is the same thing?
If it is a ball lightning, I would like to see it go through a wall. Otherwise, like Brian H. says, it’s a “blob lightning” — the kind of thing you sometimes see fly off an arc extinguisher.
The real ball lighting is more like a wave than a thing.
I might have seen it. It was violet.
I had witnessed one of these back in 1973 during a stay in Kuala Lumpur. It occurred within a dorm room at the university, darting to and fro several seconds while emitting a purplish light before abruptly going out. It was decidedly a hair raising experience, to say the very least.
“…natural ball lightning cannot be studied with scientific instruments.”
Then any attempts to duplicate it are meaningless. How would it be known that what is produced in the lab is accurate? It might look like ball lightning, but may be something entirely different.
Oh, maybe it is like a computer simulation – it doesn’t have to match reality. A consensus of investigators issues a proclamation that they have replicated it, and the science is settled. If natural ball lightning varies from lab “reality”, then nature is of discounted.
Mark and two Cats said:
“… then nature is of discounted.”
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Shoulda previewed my comment 🙁
There was a fellow, Paul Koloc, who was experimenting with a relative of ball lighting he called “plasmak” – basically a confined ball of plasma. Exactly what the hot fusion folks need. I don’t believe anything really significant came out of that work, he died last year at age 75.
A couple notes – http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-03-23/local/35450481_1_physicist-fusion-process-limited-basis
http://focusfusion.org/index.php/forums/viewthread/1097/
Hey, is that a preview button I see?
Isn’t that a sprite? Hard to tell from what they are trying to tell us. I dunno. Dr. Peratt looked into it, i think.
Could ball lightening be explained as some sort of spherical standing wave of plasma?
They should have called their grant proposal ‘Ball Lightning and its contribution to Global Warming’, then they’d have been awash with funds, rather than having to rely on a ‘small grant’
Got called to a grocery store with a mainframe blown up after a lightning strike. Spoke to several people who were there when the lightning hit. All described how the lightning came through the front door and arced from one cash register to the next. Simultaneously there was a ball lightning that traveled down the main aisle toward the back of the store, made a right turn at the meat case and disappeared a moment later.
If it is ball lightning, why is he standing there in the room with it?
davidmhoffer says:
August 9, 2013 at 6:23 pm
If they don’t know what ball lightning actually is, then how do they know what they are creating in the lab is the same thing?
__
The same argument was made when researchers like Ben Franklin were trying to figure out what regular lightning was.
The Gods send ball lighting to tease us.
I saw it at SIU in 83/84. I was visiting a friend in the dorms called the Towers. A huge storm moved in so a bunch of us went to the end of the hall to watch. Three large balls moved quickly across the sky dancing with each other like braiding hair. They were traveling just under the cloud deck and would pop in and out of it. Lasted about 5 seconds. One of the coolest things I ever saw.
Anthony Scalzi says:
August 9, 2013 at 8:32 pm
davidmhoffer says:
August 9, 2013 at 6:23 pm
If they don’t know what ball lightning actually is, then how do they know what they are creating in the lab is the same thing?
The same argument was made when researchers like Ben Franklin were trying to figure out what regular lightning was.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Ben Franklin created lightning in a lab?
davidmhoffer says:
August 9, 2013 at 9:10 pm
Ben Franklin created lightning in a lab?
Yup, at least small versions with capacitor discharges. He had trouble convincing people that it was the same as lightning, just at a smaller scale, hence the famous kite experiment. He capitalized on his lightning research by inventing the lightning rod.
I saw what I guess was ball lightning at Eglin AFB in the late 90s — started as ribbon or wave, then rolled into (or coalesced) into a ball and zipped through a hanger bay and disappeared. I had close to million dollars of sensitive equipment in that bay and spent an entire weekend checking everything.
If I had had a few things turned on, it would made a nice little report.