Ball Lightning in the Lab?
Wednesday June 14, 2006
For years, ball lightning has been something of a mystery. Reported by the Roman philosopher Seneca, the Emperor Charlemagne, and the quantum physicist Niels Bohr, many have claimed to witness these strange floating lights which last several orders of magnitude longer than traditional lightning.
Despite the mystique surrounding ball lightning, a Russian plasma physics research team may have replicated it in the lab. It appears to be a plasma discharge from water when placed a high voltage current passes through it. This would seem to confirm ideas that ball lightning is actually ionized water vapor resulting from the interaction of lightning and water.
The ball lightning vapor are produced above the water and last about 0.3 seconds. The temperature is cool, similar to neon lights, and pieces of paper placed into it are lifted upward but not set on fire. Further information on the findings can be found in the following articles:
- New Scientist: "Physicists create great balls of fire"
- PhysOrg.com: "Physicists generate ball-lightning in the lab"
Comments
My wife and I experienced ball-lightning several years ago. I can’t find another possibility of what we saw.
We sat about five or six feet apart in separate chairs. A yellowish ball, about two or three inches in diameter passed between us from the wall immediately behind. It travelled in a straight line from our room, up the hall, and into the living room where it disappeared.
It’s height was about thirty inches above the floor, and moved slow enough to be carefully observed.
I think it may have travelled from the wall plug on the wall behind us, to the one on the wall in the living room (I’m guessing because I didn’t consider this at the time it happened – I was too surprised).
The whole thing was over in about five seconds, and was quite an experience.
What else could it have been?