MetaFilter posts tagged with lightning

"Electric Guitar" indeed.

JBennett — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 10:16:39 -0800

Fried Gibson. I've always thought you were safe in a house from lightning storms as long as you were off the land-line or computer. A Mississippi man's Gibson Les Paul got positively roasted while sitting in his home, in its case, leaning against a wall. That's a powerful bolt. Lots of gory photos here and in the auction linked above including a nice shot of some of the parts that exploded off of the guitar, some shooting like bullets through the case. Awesome! And it still held quite a bit of its value. Via " The lightning had struck the huge pine tree and traveled down the trunk until it reached the nails holding the trim to house. Then it jumped across through the nails, went through the drywall, and struck the top edge of the case. It then went into the case and down the neck of the guitar, vaporizing the strings, (remnants of which can still be seen on the fretboard and frets) also apparently traveling down the Truss rod inside the neck. It then blew out the last few frets on the fretboard above the end of the Truss rod before apparently melting the insides of the pickups. It then proceeded to explode some of the bridge saddles outward through the case."

French plane lost over Atlantic

ArkhanJG — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 06:03:45 -0800

Air France flight AF 447 has gone missing over the atlantic. The flight left Rio at 2200 GMT on Sunday, and was due to land at 0910 GMT in Paris, but contact was lost at 0130 GMT, some 186 miles northeast of the Brazilian city of Natal. It had 216 passengers and 12 crew on board, including three pilots. The passengers included one infant, seven children, 82 women and 126 men. The flight has not been heard of since, and by now would have exhausted all fuel reserves and is assumed lost. Air France said the plane sent an automatic message at 0214 GMT reporting a short circuit after turbulence, and may have been struck by lightning. Searches are ongoing in the area. The Airbus A330-200 is a large-capacity, wide-body, twin-engine, medium-to-long-range commercial passenger airliner that was introduced in 1998. On 24th August 2001 another A330, Flight 236 from Toronto to Lisbon suffered a serious mid-air fuel leak over the atlantic, but performed the world's longest recorded glide with a jet airliner to land safely in Azores. Modern airliners are designed to cope with lightning strikes. On average, lightning strikes a commercial jet once for every 10,000 hours it spends in the air. However, they can result in loss of instrumentation despite shielding, and loss of the positioning instruments can result in the pilots becoming severely disorientated and flying into the ground. But, according to David Learmount safety editor of Flight International magazine, there is no case of a modern airliner being lost because of a lightning strike alone.

Audio Modulated Thunder Music Pleases Thor

Smedleyman — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 21:44:12 -0800

Perhaps the most apt instrument to use to perform The Imperial March - in response to the Dr. Who theme on the singing tesla coils. From Faraday suited DJs at ArkAttack. You know who else used a Faraday suit? Dr. Megavolt! And Electrobot! (also power linemen and engineers in the course of their work...still, these guys make music)

Fire towers

Upton O'Good — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 23:43:19 -0800

The fire tower, or fire lookout, was one of the main wildfire-fighting tools of forest services across the world for much of the 20th century. Most are small cabins, alone or placed on 80-foot steel towers; these are then placed on top of peaks, giving them an unobstructed view of the surrounding countryside. (There are some exceptions, of course.) Operators in the towers, equipped with binoculars and firefinders, spent their days searching for smoke or lightning strikes, which would be pinpointed and radioed in for firefighters. (The lookout operators, who staff the towers for a season at a time straight, have a life that is generally pretty solitary and quiet, though sometimes rather intense.) At peak, there were thousands of fire towers across North America; while most of these no longer exist, a few hundred are still active. The FFLA maintains a fairly comprehensive list of most towers, active or historical, in the US, with pictures and notes. In addition, many active lookouts maintain their own pages: Rex Kamstra has a good list. For more contemporary photography, there's also a gallery on Flickr.

Lightning Strike on Camera

johannahdeschanel — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 23:41:15 -0800

Shock Value .

Immediate prospects for the electric car

rongorongo — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 08:43:59 -0800

Two takes on the immediate future of the electric car: we are either "Going Nowhere Fast" (if you ask a petrolhead from Top Gear magazine) or we are witnessing "The End of the Petrolhead" (if you ask The Economist). A bestiary of current and planned models includes TeslaMotors (now in production), Fisker Automotive (who are being sued by Teslamotors), the GM Volt (due 2010), The Lighting Car Company, the plug in Prius, the GWiz (now slightly less squishy apparently), the Corbin Sparrow, a few (vapory?) models from Zap! and the wondrous Sinclair C5.

High-Tech Lightning Watching

fogster — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 20:55:39 -0800

A cool map of lightning frequency over time across the globe. And a live version for the U.S. Heck, a zoomed-in version on the Northeast for the past 60 minutes. It turns out that you can even buy a small Lightning Detector to map local lightning strikes on your PC. It listens for the signature static crashes from lightning, sometimes called sferics (short for atmospheric noise), much like you can hear on an AM radio during a storm. You can even listen to streaming audio from NASA's (Alabama) VLF receiver.

God messes with the Jesus

XQUZYPHYR — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 11:57:14 -0800

Lightning strikes world's largest Jesus. Masonry + nature + photography = awesome.

When lightning strikes!

newfers — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 12:14:08 -0800

Everybody has heard a story of someone being struck by lightning. People who survive such a strike can even join a support group. But if you do survive a strike, beware, as you will undoubtedly suffer adverse side effects!

First "Gigantic Jet" lightning captured in U.S.

spock — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 07:35:44 -0800

This extremely cool video captures the first "Gigantic Jets" (purportedly) ever captured in the U.S. "Think of them as sprites on steroids: Gigantic Jets are lightning-like discharges that spring from the top of thunderstorms, reaching all the way from the thunderhead to the ionosphere 50+ miles overhead. They're enormous and powerful." See also: An article on the subject from 2003, a more technical article from Nature (mirrored) and how to look for yourself.

A Field of Lightning

workinggringa — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 09:25:47 -0800

The Lightning Field in New Mexico was one of the first earth art installations when it was installed back in the 70's. 30 years later it still stands and turns even the time you spend there into art. Here's an account by Pamela Petro of her time spent there.

Wondertwin powers, activate!

homunculus — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 21:40:41 -0800

9 Superpowers made real. [Via Digg.]

Zzzzap! Zzzzap!

Blazecock Pileon — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 12:51:05 -0800

Weather shock horror! Survivors live to tell the tale!

ZAP!!

crunchland — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 15:41:06 -0800

Newsfilter : Lightning exits woman's bottom. Unfortunately, there's no video.

Sprites (atmospheric) - new movie

hank — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 11:04:46 -0800

7000 frames per second Newscientist article, with links to the movies. "Atmospheric 'sprites' captured in explosive detail ... by researchers using an ultra-high-speed camera. "The best images yet of the flashes – which resemble a giant undulating jellyfish with its tentacles falling from a halo of light – have allowed the team to pick apart their structure and mechanics. "

Ride the Lightning

mathowie — Sat, 22 Oct 2005 20:22:43 -0800

Nova Science Now recently ran a segment on lightning (quicktime, real, and windows video here). I figured that subject was over and done with shortly after Franklin flew a kite, but it turns out we don't really know exactly what causes a bolt to start. The coolest part of the segment was these researchers in Florida. Scientists know how hard it was to observe, monitor, and even find lightning bolts, so these guys built their own rig. High-powered model rockets attached to a couple thousand feet of wire, which is grounded to larger metal structures on the ground. The result? Shoot a rocket into a storm cloud and you get instant lightning you can count on, measure, and control.

Graphite, a microwave oven, and thou.

OmieWise — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 06:58:48 -0800

Foudre en Boule avec des micro-ondes (Making ball lightning in your microwave). Complete with movies and audio spectrum analyses. From the Plasma Research website. Also: how to build a stable plasmoid in your microwave; simple ball lightning generation in your microwave; and, last but certainly not least, how to build yourself a glow discharge plasma panel. "This panel is not able to generate some thrusting effects, but you will be able to explore some OAUGDP properties like the air drag reduction effect and to test the EM Cloacking effect."

Burn it! Tear it down! Hail Kotos!

BlackLeotardFront — Mon, 08 Aug 2005 09:01:10 -0800

Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt! LIGHTNING BOLT! THE MOVIE. (qt) - the alternate trailer. (and the original in case you lost it)

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZAP!

warbaby — Sat, 30 Apr 2005 21:32:35 -0800

Lightning On Demand is a volunteer organization of engineers, artists, scientists and machinists. Our key objective is to produce a controllable discharge of lightning at the greatest physical scale imaginable using modern technology. They've built the worlds biggest Tesla coil, Electrum, a Taser Cannon and some other projects

Ben Franklin's Electrical Experiments

yankeefog — Tue, 15 Feb 2005 06:07:07 -0800

I never was before engaged in any study that so totally engrossed my attention and my time Ben Frankin's extensive experiments with electricity went well beyond his famous kite flying; he also proved that lightning was electrical (and invented the lightning rod), and was the first one to use the words "positive" and "negative" to describe electrical charges. It would no doubt please the ingenious Mr. Franklin to know that all of his writings on electricity are now available online (Note: link goes to 912k PDF file.) Franklin's excitement over his discoveries is palpable--and high school students can duplicate them on their own, thanks to Ben Franklin As My Lab Partner. And for a demonstration that combines Ben's knowledge of electricity with his mischievous sense of humor and fondness for political subversion, watch Conspirators, or The Treason.

Ball Lightning

biscotti — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 13:35:26 -0800

It's made of fluffy silicon. Others think differently. It could explain some UFO sightings. It can be dangerous. And you can make it at home in your microwave. It's ball lightning.

Extreme Instability

madamjujujive — Sun, 08 Aug 2004 10:19:25 -0800

Extreme Instability is a site by Mike Hollingshead, a weather buff from Nebraska who likes chasing storms. On his good days, he gets some spectacular photos of tornados and supercells, but, heck, even his 'crap chasing' days aren't too bad. More of Mike's photos at photoSig.

Nature's Rings

tomplus2 — Fri, 11 Jul 2003 08:05:30 -0800

A lightning bolt created a beautiful smoke ring in the sky the other day. It resembles of Mt Etna's and other volcano's beautiful rings. Nature at it's best.

Power-working wonder?

stonerose — Sat, 05 Jul 2003 08:46:04 -0800

Preacher asks for a sign, and gets one. Is this the wonder-working power Bush was talking about in the State of the Union Address? Oddly enough this list of indoor lightning safety tips doesn't suggest staying the hell away from charismatic preachers.

mathowie — Thu, 06 Sep 2001 22:48:06 -0800

Boy survives getting struck by lightning (a man standing next to him dies) and his mom starts a struck by lightning community site to help deal with the trauma, share information, and share experiences about these sorts of events.