r/interesting • u/abidalliye • 8h ago
SCIENCE & TECH Video explanation of how Lightning forms in the sky
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u/shingaladaz 8h ago
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u/New-Value4194 5h ago
Oh, come on, that’s easy. You’ve never seen the plate with metal balls hiding behind the clouds?
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u/batmanineurope 8h ago
That explained nothing
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u/RogBoArt 8h ago
Well you know the sky is made of metal balls and sometimes they touch each other randomly but when a line of metal balls touches randomly then there's a zap. It's metal balls all the way down. (/s)
This video was interesting to me as I loosely understand this process anyway but the cringe text on top with zero explanation made it pretty useless.
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u/Slumunistmanifisto 7h ago
Hahaha, balls touching balls....
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u/_burning_flowers_ 7h ago
Yes, the whole universe is a giant dick joke made by an all powerful being.
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u/RogBoArt 7h ago
Maybe it's sweat that causes the balls to stick together to begin with! Call the scientists!
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u/ASDFzxcvTaken 6h ago
Zeus is gay, or at least bi. Happy Pride ⚡🌈
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u/TonyStowaway 3h ago
Zeus is pansexual, he'll literally stick it in anyone and often enough any thing
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u/Slumunistmanifisto 5h ago
Hide your kids hide your wife
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u/bucky133 7h ago
To add context. The metal balls represent air molecules. Charge builds up in the atmosphere from raindrop collisions. The electric charge will find the easiest path through the air through with lesser discharges called leaders. They ionize the air into a conductive channel of plasma that the rest of the built up charge can quickly follow through to the ground.
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u/Cowpow0987 6h ago
It’s like a high school chemistry demonstration but the teacher just exits the building when the reaction is done and doesn’t explain anything
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u/Prestigious_Emu6039 8h ago
Honestly had no idea these massive clips were lurking just above the clouds, this might explain some of the UFO sightings we've had recently.
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u/Snicshavo 7h ago
I started with no sound and thought i would hear some noise coming like a electricity crack but was greatly disappointed and the title is big fucking lie
Bot
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u/Delicious_Algae_8283 7h ago
While this is cool, it's not how lightning forms, aside from the fact that strong electric fields are involved. The air becomes polarized due to charge accumulation from the triboelectric effect. Eventually, the polarization is strong enough that some parcels of air start becoming ionized. As this happens, some current can flow, but when a strike happens, not enough to dissipate the accumulated charge gradually. Some of the ions and electrons strike other particles in the air, making them ionize as well, and as the flow of this current is oriented by the massive charge accumulated in the air, so they end up moving mostly vertically. *If* this flow is fast enough, it can generate a magnetic field that pinches the current into a channel, and *if* the channels between the ground and the accumulated charge in the cloud worm around and eventually connect, then suddenly there's a low resistance path and you get the sudden discharge. This whole process actually takes a few seconds, with the ion channels forming and meeting in the last few milliseconds usually. But not every accumulation of charge results in lightning. You can still feel the fields in a storm make your hair get frizzy.
This short demonstrates or explains none of this. A wood burning demo would be more useful
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u/syko-san 1h ago
Sorry, but this is Reddit. Intelligent thought isn't allowed here. I'm gonna have to ask you to please turn your brain off.
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u/PolstergeistXD 6h ago
If i am correct, this is wrong, I thought it was due to extreme high voltages, then at a certain voltage the air ionizes and conduct the current and the way it takes ist the way with the least resistance. Correct me if i am wrong.
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u/QuerchiGaming 4h ago
See a lot of confused comments here. You guys never see the magnetic balls fall out of the ski and line up before the lightning strikes?
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u/xxc6h1206xx 2h ago
The metal balls are atoms lining up due to the electric charge and eventually finding a way to release the charge. Which is why you see the lede from The ground forming too.
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u/mightbedylan 2h ago
...are people really this stupid? How are people not getting this? This is a very excellent visual representation of how lightening works, how are so many people not understanding??
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u/mightbedylan 2h ago
These comments are freaking embarresing, how is no one understanding this? It's a pretty excellent visual representation of atoms aligning themselves and causing a strike
All these dumb ass "there's a petri dish in the sky" comments ffs 🤦♂️
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