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The Egyptian goddess Isis was celebrated as the ideal wife and mother. The blogger known as Dr. Isis has some fancy-sounding degrees and is a physiologist at a major research university working on some terribly impressive stuff. She blogs about balancing her research career with the demands of raising small children, how to succeed as a woman in academia, and anything else she finds interesting. Also, she blogs about shoes. In fact, she blogs a lot about shoes.

"Set Oculus" is obviously a pseudonym. My real name is mysteriously hard to pronounce. I live in the rust belt of the US but am fortunate to have an income that allows me to pursue my interests in science and culture without starving. I'm very geeky. I like Star Trek but I don't get "slash" fiction; the thought of Star Trek characters "doing it", well, it's like your parents doing it. Ew.
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The Formation of a Lightning Bolt

Category: Science-y Sounding Meanderings
Posted on: July 25, 2010 4:30 PM, by Isis the Scientist

This is absoluely breathtaking

The branching and patterning is absolutely amazing. Lightning may be only slighty less cool than blood vessels. Only slightly.

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Comments

Awesome. Send some of that rain this way, please.

Posted by: unbalanced reaction | July 25, 2010 4:50 PM

The original source is here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bvmEYxEYiA

Posted by: Wolf Corlett | July 25, 2010 5:30 PM

Neato! Notice towards the end there's this one path that disappears and keeps showing up and disappearing several times in the exact same shape. Almost like it remembers that lightning was just there. Anyone know why that is?

Posted by: Namnezia | July 25, 2010 9:00 PM

Lightning may be only slighty less cool than blood vessels.

The coolest part is that lightning and blood vessels (and tree branches, and rivers) have essentially the same kind of shape.

Posted by: Emily | July 25, 2010 10:06 PM

Whoa! This was perfect with the techno music I was playing in the background... :)

Posted by: Thioploca | July 25, 2010 10:23 PM

@Namnezia, because it does 'know' it was there. After the initial charge passes, the air is ionized and more current can pass with little resistance. Electricity tends to follow the path of least resistance. Gross oversimplification, but the general point.

Posted by: Mike | July 26, 2010 9:49 AM

Namnezia: Not a lightning expert, but lightning is a flow of electrons from the air to the ground, and they usually take the most efficient, least resistive path to get there. So its likely that that path through the air that it kept taking was the one that provided the least resistance, or opposition to the atmospheric electrons. Its like if you're in a car on a crowded freeway. If everything is slow except for the carpool lane, you're going to jump in the carpool lane to move faster. Same kinda thing

Posted by: S | July 26, 2010 9:50 AM

Wow, is lightening cool or what? WOw.

Lou
www.real-anonymity.at.tc

Posted by: Jimmy Joe | July 26, 2010 10:00 AM

Exactly, the path of least resistance. By the way that makes you wonder about that old saying that lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place. Obvioulsy it isn't true because as long as the path is "available" it can be "run through" as many times as possible.

Posted by: Johnny Boy | July 26, 2010 11:30 AM

i'm not sure, but i think some of you may be missing the fact that this strike only takes 0.307 seconds to occur. sure the lightning travels down to earth via path of least resistance, but in 0.3 seconds, you won't really see the lightning disappear and reappear several times.
the reason you see that in this video is because the video was slowed down a hell of a lot...and lightning pulses. That's why the bolt disappears and reappears several times within the 0.3 seconds.

Posted by: adam | July 26, 2010 6:36 PM

Doh! It's gone. Damn.

Posted by: Greg Laden | July 26, 2010 8:22 PM

How annoying copyright law can be. Guess someone doesn't want free publicity.

Posted by: mike angelichio | July 26, 2010 10:13 PM

damn you Tom A Warner :/

Posted by: DaFreak4ever | July 26, 2010 11:46 PM

Tom A. Warner - grade A dick.

"F*ck the spread of knowledge...that there's MY slow-motion lightning bolt."

Posted by: chris | July 27, 2010 12:23 AM

Well, you COULD complain about copyright on the Internet - always fun - or you could follow the link in comment #2 and still see it...

Posted by: SeanH | July 27, 2010 8:17 AM

...
I will not hate on Tom A. Warner for enforcing his (apparent) copyright . . .rights.

But we can laugh at him for disabling comments there. Must be a fun guy.

...tom...

Posted by: ...tom... | July 27, 2010 11:44 PM

I can't begrudge Tom Warner attempting to enforce copyright. Those high-speed cameras can cost upwards of $200,000 or so.

Posted by: Alex Wild | July 28, 2010 12:42 AM

Ohm my gosh. I am currently out of things to say, so I will stay grounded in my lack of puns, unless something strikes me like a bolt from the blue.

Posted by: Amanda | July 28, 2010 5:33 AM

Yeah, Tom's going into the lucrative "slo-mo weather video" field. What a douche!

Posted by: DaveX | July 28, 2010 8:48 AM

Hey! That dude removed his awesome video! Damn it!

Posted by: Isis the Scientist | July 29, 2010 11:47 PM

Search Tom Warner. The vid is still on his webpage.

Posted by: troopoort | July 30, 2010 9:52 AM

Most of the literature I read indicates the bottom of a cloud is negatively charged. Therefore it is electron rich. It is easy to see that the electrons would travel from the bottom of the cloud to the ground ionizing the air as they travel ending up with the bolt we see traveling from the sky to the ground. When the bolt travels in the opposite direction is the same charge arrangement still there, pos on the top of the cloud and neg on the bottom? How could the air be ionized from the ground to the bottom of the cloud? Are pos ions traveling up and ionizing the air to create the bolt we see? That makes no sense to me since a pos ion would have to contain protons and their mass would make it more likely to have the lighter electrons travel. Please help since as a high school Physics teacher I will show this video and I want to give the correct explanation to the inevitable questions I will get.

Posted by: JMCaldaro | August 1, 2010 7:58 PM

But we can laugh at him for disabling comments there. Must be a fun guy.

Posted by: tütüne son | August 2, 2010 12:42 PM