I'm pretty sure I saw ball lightening once when I was a child. It was in the courtyard of our house during a lightning store - a ball of translucent orange that was stationary for a moment before whisking away.
"... Here's a slightly less superficial version of the same article from CSIRO ..."
thx for finding this. There's always a balance between posting a general news article and the research source. The former is usually shallow, the later too deep.
This might be an explanation for ball lightning, but I'm pretty sure it can't be the explanation.
I saw ball lightning once. Got caught in a thunderstorm at 12,000 feet in the Sierras -- well above timberline -- and watched the lightning striking around me while I hid under a boulder. I was essentially in the centre of the thunderhead; things got pretty wild. At one point I saw two or three lighting balls (I thought they were maybe 1-2 feet in diameter, although estimating distance in such an environment and which such unfamiliar sights is probably a lost cause), and one thing in the distance which looked like a bobbling string of pearls.
The nearest window would have been about 20 miles away, so that can't be the only explanation.
I can't comment on the quality of the theory described here, but I hope you realise there is silicon everywhere - most common minerals contain a substantial proportion of Si.
My impression is that the theory is not just about silicon, but specifically about windows. Seems to require a smooth silicon-based non-conducting material, with air on both sides and a charge differential between them.
The full pdf is not accessible and the abstract is too light.
Many ball lightning have been witnessed in absence of windows. What's the point of such explanation ?
It is a frequent behavior to select one caracteristic of a multi variated phenomenon and derive from it an explanation. Obviously the explanation can't account for all the other caracteristics of the phenomenon. But that seem to be a detail.
BTW my father proposed an explanation of ball lightning that he presented at AIS in 2011. The proceedings are not yet published.
The explanation is that ball lightnings are plasma bubbles. The plasma is in the thin layer of the bubble. The ions ocillate radialy. The ball consumes ozone and follows ozone gradians.
There are two types of lightning balls. One that ends by lighting off silently and one that ends by an explosition. If my memory is right the difference comes from the nature of the negative charge carrier. In one case they are electrons and in the other negative ions. But I'm not sure.
This is just the main idea. There is much more to it.
To create ball lightning experimentally we thus at least need ozone.
The point of this study is to supplament previous studies of ball lightning. The most widely accepted theory is that ball lightning is a ball of silicon gas, resulting from lightning striking the ground. That obviously didn't address the cases of ball lightning appearing in and around aircraft, which is the gap this study fills in.
So now it seems we have one workable theory of ball lightning. To claim it is incomplete, you need to find cases of ball lightning that were both a significant distance away from the ground AND far, far away from any windows.
My doubts about this theory lie in the various behaviors when ball lightning encouters solid objects... Sometimes it burns a hole, while other times witnesses claim it passed right through solid objects without causing any damage. That seems to indicate there may be two very different types of ball lightning, but perhaps the ground versus windows source will prove to generate a sufficiently different type of ball which will suit both observations.
The silicon gaz is new to me. Never heard of this theory. How would such a gaz not disolve in air ?
How could it explain the explosions reported with some ball lightning ? The plasma bubble explains all the reported facts.
A precision to the discribed model is that ions of opposite charge move in opposite direction radialy. When they crossed each other they slow down due to the attractive force of the opposite charge up to the point they stop and reverse direction. This oscillation of the ions explains the stability of the plasma over a long period.
The plasma bubble layer is very thin. A bubble may contain other bubbles forming then multi layer bubbles.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 20.4 ms ] threadNobody ever believed me.
Here's the paper: http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2012JD017921.shtml
thx for finding this. There's always a balance between posting a general news article and the research source. The former is usually shallow, the later too deep.
I saw ball lightning once. Got caught in a thunderstorm at 12,000 feet in the Sierras -- well above timberline -- and watched the lightning striking around me while I hid under a boulder. I was essentially in the centre of the thunderhead; things got pretty wild. At one point I saw two or three lighting balls (I thought they were maybe 1-2 feet in diameter, although estimating distance in such an environment and which such unfamiliar sights is probably a lost cause), and one thing in the distance which looked like a bobbling string of pearls.
The nearest window would have been about 20 miles away, so that can't be the only explanation.
Many ball lightning have been witnessed in absence of windows. What's the point of such explanation ?
It is a frequent behavior to select one caracteristic of a multi variated phenomenon and derive from it an explanation. Obviously the explanation can't account for all the other caracteristics of the phenomenon. But that seem to be a detail.
BTW my father proposed an explanation of ball lightning that he presented at AIS in 2011. The proceedings are not yet published.
The explanation is that ball lightnings are plasma bubbles. The plasma is in the thin layer of the bubble. The ions ocillate radialy. The ball consumes ozone and follows ozone gradians.
There are two types of lightning balls. One that ends by lighting off silently and one that ends by an explosition. If my memory is right the difference comes from the nature of the negative charge carrier. In one case they are electrons and in the other negative ions. But I'm not sure.
This is just the main idea. There is much more to it.
To create ball lightning experimentally we thus at least need ozone.
So now it seems we have one workable theory of ball lightning. To claim it is incomplete, you need to find cases of ball lightning that were both a significant distance away from the ground AND far, far away from any windows.
My doubts about this theory lie in the various behaviors when ball lightning encouters solid objects... Sometimes it burns a hole, while other times witnesses claim it passed right through solid objects without causing any damage. That seems to indicate there may be two very different types of ball lightning, but perhaps the ground versus windows source will prove to generate a sufficiently different type of ball which will suit both observations.
How could it explain the explosions reported with some ball lightning ? The plasma bubble explains all the reported facts.
A precision to the discribed model is that ions of opposite charge move in opposite direction radialy. When they crossed each other they slow down due to the attractive force of the opposite charge up to the point they stop and reverse direction. This oscillation of the ions explains the stability of the plasma over a long period.
The plasma bubble layer is very thin. A bubble may contain other bubbles forming then multi layer bubbles.
http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v98/i4/e048501