Monday, September 29, 2008

When I was in France, there was a massive storm during my last week there and lightning struck the tree in the neighbor's yard. Lightning is charging by induction. Friction in the clouds make the cloud polarized into a positive top region and a negative bottom region. When the cloud is polarized, the earth too becomes polarized; the negative charge at the bottom of the cloud induces a positive charge at the surgace of the ground below. Lighting is when a transfer of electrons between the clouds and the ground occurs.

3 comments:

kohara said...

wow! that's also why you're not supposed to stand under a tree during a lightning storm... the charge flows right down the tree and radiates outward on the ground around the tree.

shantha said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
shantha said...

i love france! that picture is pretty trippy. tres cool!