I just saw this video at McSweeney's (which in turn got it from Today's Big Thing). It's quite the stunner, watching the lightning seek out ground and then BOOM.
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David Ng is Director of the Advanced Molecular Biology Laboratory at the University of British Columbia - this is a just a fancier way of calling himself a science teacher.
Benjamin Cohen is an Asst. Professor of Science, Tech., and Society at the University of Virginia. He studies the place of S & T in environmental history, policy, and ethics. He also writes other stuff.
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Talk about beautiful: Lightning is awesome when you can just sit back and enjoy it slowly
Category: Video links (archive.org samples, for example; Youtube.com; others...)
Posted on: August 19, 2008 11:54 AM, by David Ng
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Physical Science
Comments
Awesome!
Posted by: NPD | August 19, 2008 2:59 PM
Is there a science journal article to go with that video? The bright dots at the ends of the original branching structure, before one of the ionization channels connects to the ground and the upward stroke takes over, make me wonder if there's something there to give a clue to 'ball lightning' -- it looks like the bright spots in the video are still 'connected' by trails of ionization up to the charge concentration in the cloud. But if one of those broke off in an insulated environment, could it persist for a while?
I don't recall ever seeing anything about that kind of multiply branching structure for the first cloud-to-ground discharge, before this video.
Anyone know how it was made and with what equipment?
Posted by: Hank Roberts | September 2, 2008 1:32 PM