[extropy-chat] Re: Ball lightning

[J. Andrew Rogers]

Dirk wrote:
> A report from a (now dead) father of a friend who saw some form once.
> He said it was created where two parts of the lightning discharge crossed.


It has nothing to do with "crossed discharges".  The Great Plains of the United States has 
extremely energetic and unusual storm systems that are largely unique to that region, and in 
the couple years I lived out there as a teenager, I saw "ball lightning" twice.

My take:  It is clearly an energetic electromagnetic phenomenon, but I would also assert that 
it has little to do with lightning; it is a phenomenon that occurs in proximity to lightning 
storms because there are similar prerequisites.  It tends to only interact with conductive 
materials.  And it passes through neutral materials like cellulose and glass without 
interacting at all.

In fact, if I had to make a wild-ass guess, the basic properties and peculiarities of it makes it 
look like an energetic EM phenomenon in something like the microwave range.  Imagine, for 
example, if the peculiar electromagnetic meteorological structures of the region acted as 
resonators, EM waveguides, or even massive magnitron tubes (or masers?).  If you've seen 
some of the bizarre energetic structure of these storms in the several cubic kilometer range, 
it would not be surprising.

I've lived in many places that had severe storms, but the Great Plains region of the US has 
extremely violent lightning storms and very unusual atmospheric phenomenon that I have 
never seen anywhere else.  That "ball lightning" is also common there is probably not a 
coincidence, in the same way that the unusual frequency of tornados there is not.


j. andrew rogers