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/sci/ - Science & Math

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File: 979 KB, 713x599, Ball_lightning.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
11789864 No.11789864 [Reply] [Original]

>ball lightning
What the fuck is that and what does it want?

>> No.11792175

>>11789864
Sounds like bullcrap to me. Probably some excuse to dismiss alien spacecraft.

>> No.11792269

>>11792175
>alien spacecraft
Sounds like bullcrap to me. Probably some excuse to dismiss our divine creator interacting with us.

>> No.11792272

Given the long history and consistency of accounts, I'm confident that there is SOME kind of phenomenon behind the reports of ball lightning. I don't believe that it's literal balls of electricity floating slowly through the air, but I can believe there's something in nature that kinda looks like that if you're not really paying attention or are really startled.

>> No.11792283
File: 584 KB, 1400x2700, 6e6UFLc(2).png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
11792283

>>11792269
He better watch out before I beat his ass.

>> No.11792336

>>11792272
I mean it could be. At my uni, the plasma physics had an idea to have a self-contained plasma bolt. All theoretical, but you have a metallic nitrogen slug (metallic nitrogen is liquid) and you spin it so it makes a magnetic field. The metallic hydrogen evaporates into plasma. The magnetic field keeps the plasma intact which maintains pressure to hold the metallic nitrogen together. So you can hold the metallic nitrogen slug together until enough plasma either loses its energy or leaks through the magnetic field. So I do think it's possible for a ball of bright light to be self contained.

>> No.11792343

>>11792336
possible in a lab =/= possible in the wild. where the fuck are you going to encounter metallic nitrogen outside a physics lab in the last 50 years?

>> No.11792353

>>11792343
Uh, after a lightning bolt turns the air to plasma?

>> No.11792358

>>11792353
there is no fucking way lightning produces metallic nitrogen. it just won't happen.

>> No.11792375

>>11792358
Earth's atmosphere is 78% nitrogen. Non-metallic, obviously, but hear me out.
The process that creates lightning is capable of turning air into plasma.
Lightning has a long history of turning soil and rocks magnetic.

Just saying, what if, in extremely rare circumstances, where the properties of the lightning bolt are JUST right, and the surrounding atmospheric qualities were all JUST right, something weird happened? Probably not even 1 in a million, but is it conceivable?

>> No.11792412

>>11792375
i can't discount some freak occurence of nature. all i can do is look at the phase diagram of nitrogen and note that you have to get to gigapascal range before you can get metallic nitrogen.

>> No.11792485

>>11792412
But from what I understand (I'm a different anon), the sole purpose of the nitrogen being metallic was to hold a rotational spin and create a magnetic charge for the shift to plasma. My suggestion is that, with the known plasma-creating qualities and such of lightning, it may be possible to skip the metallic stage altogether.

>> No.11792507

>>11792485
i dont believe you're a different anon but whatever, it doesn't matter. i get what you're saying now. i can't discount the possibility but i also can't endorse it.

>> No.11792790

You can find videos online of people turning regular microwave ovens into death rays and in the right conditions some of them make balls of plasma. Think of grapes in the microwave, except outside.

Where exactly the microwaves come from is something I can't answer confidently. Atmospheric phenomena caused by regular lightning or lasers from space are the two things I would guess.

>> No.11793233

>>11792790
Ball lighting was observed in the battery rooms of old WW2 subs. Some proffessor at some school was able to create some by place high current electrodes in to s beaker of water or something.
Source: saw it on tv once.

>> No.11794603
File: 247 KB, 1034x1080, 1575654845309.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
11794603

>>11789864

> Life-like Plasma and Ball Lightning? | Electricity of Life
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFI4SYKfpTg

>> No.11794618

>>11789864
Based
>>11792175
Based
>>11792269
Based

>> No.11794628

It has got to be a some kind of hallucination or group hallucination.

>> No.11794782

Seems like it was much more common before everyone had easy access to cameras on their phones. Of course there might be a legit reason why they don't appear on camera phone footage or maybe something in the world has changed to make ball lightning far less common than it used to be.

>> No.11794837

>>11794782
There were probably a lot of fakes. It's not something that would stick around very long.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=K-EOiO25Fag
Thoughts?

>> No.11794855

>>11794837
Even if you can engineer a phenomenon that resembles "a ball of lightning," it doesn't mean that ball lightning as described exists in nature.

>> No.11794921

>>11789864
The mystery of ball lightning was solved in 2014
https://physics.aps.org/articles/v7/5

>> No.11794938

>>11794837
I'm wondering if maybe there was some type of construction material or technique that was common in earlier eras that's uncommon now somehow worked as a catalyst for ball lightning. Practically no one does plaster and lathe walls anymore but type used to be common. Maybe some trace material found in the source material for insulation of an earlier era was involved.