
A New Explanation for Ball Lightning - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/blog/-a-new-explanation-for-one-of-the-strangest-occurrences-in-natureball-lightning
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ChuckMcM
As phenomena go, ball lightning is one of those things which has always
fascinated me. It was said that Tesla could summon a ball of light[1], no one
has ever been able to reproduce that feat. That in itself has got to be pretty
cool.

I like the idea of a the microwave bubble (or even just an RF bubble). We know
that ionized air reflects radio waves (ask any amateur who has bounced off the
ionosphere for an over the horizon signal) so I can imagine that a 'ball' of
ionized air would reflect any radiowaves that were inside of it with energy
leaking out in the form of light. But how to do that with Tesla era equipment?
Good question.

[1] _" I never saw fireballs, but as a compensation for my disappointment I
succeeded later in determining the mode of their formation and producing them
artificially. "_ \--
[http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/tesla/esp_tesla_20.htm](http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/tesla/esp_tesla_20.htm)

~~~
cr0sh
You can make something akin to ball lightning in your (friend's) home
microwave:

Get a birthday candle, melt some of it onto a small plate, then stick it on
the plate. Put the plate in the microwave. Turn the microwave on high for
about 1-2 minutes.

Again - don't do this at home with a microwave you care about...

~~~
ChuckMcM
"akin" isn't really much use. To read what visitors to Tesla's laboratory saw
it was much like something imagined for a book on magic where a magician
conjures a ball of light to illuminate the room and follow around the
magician.

It's fun to think about because many many people saw him do it and yet no one
has figured out _how_ he did it, and not for lack of trying. Its like the
"Fermat's Theorem" of physics phenomena as far as I'm concerned.

Now that I've got a couple of software defined radios (SDRs) that can generate
microwaves on demand with an arbitrary modulation, I expect there might be
some fun experiments to do here.

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tim333
Tesla's gear kicked out a lot of power in a way that I'm not sure has really
been done since. At least I haven't seen photos looking as impressive as the
ones of him in his lab
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/Tesla_co...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/Tesla_colorado_adjusted.jpg)

[https://thevelvetrocket.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/nikola-t...](https://thevelvetrocket.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/nikola-
tesla-and-his-wardenclyffe-tower-and-laboratory4.jpg)

~~~
iplaw
These are very likely long exposures that captured groundings over time. It'd
look much less impressive in person, and more in line with what you've seen
reproduced.

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thret
The video in this article comes as a relief. When I was a teenager, sitting in
the backseat of my parents car I saw something exactly like that. Nobody else
saw it; there were no reports of a meteorite, and I always worried that it was
a dream I was unable to separate from reality. I am sure now that I've seen
ball lightning.

~~~
therealab
Sorry, but if you slow the video to 0.25x and watch closely, you can see it's
a firefly :P

~~~
kmill
1\. How do you know it's a firefly? It's just a bright spot.

2\. The diameter of the ball increases dramatically, as if it originates from
the clouds.

3\. It seems to disappear behind the trees, suggesting it is far away.

This isn't to say that it isn't a firefly; I just have no idea how you can be
so sure.

~~~
randlet
I'm pretty convinced it's a firefly after watching the video frame by frame.
Go to the YT video, set it 1080p and pause at 36s. Then go frame by frame (use
',' and '.' to go back/forth by a single frame) and you can see it appear as a
dark blob, that comes down, eventually lighting up, then contrary to your
point 3 it actually goes in front of the trees.

~~~
kmill
I did go frame by frame myself earlier. The fact that it starts as a dark blob
is pretty good evidence for it being a firefly, and I think I saw it earlier
as part of the dramatic increase in diameter, but I can't see it that way
right now.

For me it's hard to tell whether it "actually" goes in front of or behind the
trees. I was thinking if it were bright enough it could fade as it descends
behind the treeline. It would be a rather large firefly if it went behind the
trees, though.

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tzs
> Even today, we don’t have a crystal-clear understanding of how they form and
> do what they do

That's not at all surprising, considering that we don't even have a crystal-
clear understanding yet of regular lighting.

~~~
2_listerine_pls
What is left to know about lighting?

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tzs
We don't know how it actually happens. The mechanisms we know for building up
charge separation in clouds should not produce fields strong enough to
initiate lighting, and measurements back that up. The fields are too weak by
an order of magnitude.

We don't know if there is some other mechanism that produces stronger fields
locally that gets lightning started, or if something lowers the required field
strength, or maybe something else.

Here is a recent article on a new mechanism that may have something to do with
it, and that casts doubt on a theory that has been popular for a couple
decades [1].

Here's another article that mentions that, and mentions some of the other
lightning mysteries [2].

[1] [https://phys.org/news/2016-02-scientists-clues-mystery-
light...](https://phys.org/news/2016-02-scientists-clues-mystery-
lightning.html)

[2]
[http://voices.nationalgeographic.org/2017/05/02/unraveling-t...](http://voices.nationalgeographic.org/2017/05/02/unraveling-
the-mysteries-of-lightning/)

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sp332
I'm glad someone did a good write-up of the research. I read through the paper
one afternoon and it was super dense and I couldn't make heads or tails of the
math. It is a really cool phenomenon!

edit: More discussion from the last time this came up
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11953566](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11953566)

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giardini
Wu's theory is ripe for experimental verification and consequent
weaponization.

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tinus_hn
It's surprising and perhaps telling that in this age of dash cams and camera
phones there aren't plenty of videos of ball lightning.

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dboreham
This isn't new. In fact I'm pretty sure I remember reading an article
referenced here at least a year ago. Headline should be "A New Article on the
now current accepted theory on Ball Lightning".

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newman8r
here's a presentation about measuring x-ray radiation from lightning strikes
and how it challenges the traditional models as well [https://www-
group.slac.stanford.edu/ais/publicDocs/presentat...](https://www-
group.slac.stanford.edu/ais/publicDocs/presentation68.pdf)

With quadcopters being so cheap, I assume a lot more people are going to be
experimenting.

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drsopp
There is a phenomenon in Norway that might be related to this that I find very
interesting. The research here is called Project Hessdalen. See
[http://www.hessdalen.org/index_e.shtml](http://www.hessdalen.org/index_e.shtml)
Unfortunately, the phenomenon has been victim of a lot of ridicule, linking it
to the ufo fringe. Potentially, however, understanding this could be a key to
unknown sources of energy. I mean this in a scientific way.

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brianwawok
6 damage for 3 mana isn't a bad deal but it's not a strong enough 3 drop in
the modern meta.

~~~
Ninjalicious
Dies to instant speed removal too.

