Where is ball lightning. The five most amazing and mysterious natural phenomena. How to escape from ball lightning

One of the most amazing and dangerous natural phenomena is ball lightning. How to behave and what to do when meeting with her, you will learn from this article.

What is ball lightning

Surprisingly, but modern science finds it difficult to answer this question. Unfortunately, no one has yet been able to analyze this natural phenomenon with the help of precise scientific instruments. All attempts by scientists to recreate it in the laboratory have also failed. Despite a lot of historical data and eyewitness accounts, some researchers even deny the very existence of this phenomenon.

Those who were lucky enough to stay alive after meeting with an electric ball, give conflicting testimonies. They claim to have seen a sphere 10 to 20 cm in diameter, but describe it differently. According to one version, ball lightning is almost transparent, the contours of surrounding objects can even be guessed through it. According to another, its color varies from white to red. Someone says that they felt the heat emanating from the lightning. Others did not notice any warmth from her, even being in close proximity.

Chinese scientists were lucky to detect ball lightning using spectrometers. Although this moment lasted one and a half seconds, the researchers were able to conclude that it was different from ordinary lightning.

Where does ball lightning appear?

How to behave when meeting with her, because a fireball can appear anywhere. The circumstances of its formation are very different and it is difficult to find a definite pattern. Most people think that you can only meet lightning during or after a thunderstorm. However, there is a lot of evidence that it also appeared in dry, cloudless weather. It is also impossible to predict the place where an electric ball may form. There were cases when it arose from a voltage network, a tree trunk, and even from a wall of an apartment building. Eyewitnesses saw how lightning appeared on its own, met it in open areas and indoors. Also, the literature describes cases when, after a normal strike, ball lightning occurred.

How to behave

If you are "lucky enough" to encounter a fireball in an open area, you must adhere to the basic rules of behavior in this extreme situation.

• Try to move away slowly dangerous place over a considerable distance. Don't turn your back on the lightning and don't try to run away from it.
• If she is close and moving towards you, freeze, stretch your arms forward and hold your breath. After a few seconds or minutes, the ball will circle around you and disappear.
• In no case do not throw any objects at it, as if it collides with something, the lightning explodes.

Ball lightning: how to escape if it appeared in the house?

This plot is the most terrible, since an unprepared person can panic and make a fatal mistake. Remember that the electric sphere reacts to any movement of air. Therefore, the most universal advice is to remain still and calm. What else can be done if ball lightning has flown into the apartment?

• What to do if she was near your face? Blow on the ball and it will fly off to the side.
• Do not touch iron objects.
• Freeze, do not make sudden movements and do not try to escape.
• If there is an entrance to an adjacent room nearby, then try to hide in it. But do not turn your back on the lightning and try to move as slowly as possible.
• Do not try to drive it away with any object, otherwise you risk provoking a strong explosion. In this case, you face such serious consequences as cardiac arrest, burns, injuries and loss of consciousness.

How to help the victim

Remember that lightning can cause very serious injury or even take life. If you see that a person is injured by her blow, then urgently take action - move him to another place and do not be afraid, since there will no longer be a charge in his body. Put him on the floor, wrap him up and call an ambulance. In case of cardiac arrest, give him artificial respiration until the arrival of doctors. If the person was not badly hurt, put a wet towel on his head, give two analgin tablets and soothing drops.

How to save yourself

How to protect yourself from ball lightning? First of all, you need to take steps that will keep you safe during a normal thunderstorm. Remember that in most cases people suffer from electric shock while in nature or in the countryside.

• How to escape from ball lightning in the forest? Don't hide under lonely trees. Try to find a low grove or undergrowth. Remember that lightning rarely strikes conifers and birches.
• Do not hold metal objects (forks, shovels, guns, fishing rods and umbrellas) above your head.
• Do not hide in a haystack and do not lie down on the ground - better squat down.
• If a thunderstorm caught you in the car, stop and do not touch metal objects. Don't forget to lower your antenna and drive away from tall trees. Stop at the curb and do not enter the gas station.
• Remember that quite often a thunderstorm goes against the wind. Ball lightning moves in exactly the same way.
• How to behave in the house and should you worry if you are under a roof? Unfortunately, a lightning rod and other devices are not able to help you.
• If you are in the steppe, then squat down, try not to rise above the surrounding objects. You can take cover in a ditch, but leave it as soon as it starts to fill with water.
• If you are sailing in a boat, then in no case do not get up. Try to get to the shore as quickly as possible and move away from the water to a safe distance.

• Take off your jewelry and put it away.
• Turn off your cell phone. If it works, then ball lightning can be attracted to the signal.
• How to escape from a thunderstorm if you are in the country? Close windows and chimney. It is not yet known whether glass is a barrier to lightning. However, it has been observed that it easily seeps into any slots, sockets or electrical appliances.
• If you are at home, then close the windows and turn off electrical appliances, do not touch anything metal. Try to stay away from outlets. Do not make phone calls and turn off all external antennas.

Ball lightning - the unsolved mystery of nature

The village where several generations of my ancestors lived is called Berezovka and is located 150 kilometers from the metropolis. Today there is no one left, and we rarely get out there. The garden is overgrown, the house, once strong, leaned over. The house is quite small: a closet, a kitchen and a hall, as the locals call it. In the summer of 2005, I was lying in the hall on an old bed with a bent net. My wife was in the kitchen preparing a salad, and I enjoyed the sound of rain and the sound of thunder. The door to the closet was open, the window in the hall too, and after another roll of thunder from the kitchen, lightning flashed through the hall and flew out the window. It was exactly the same as they draw in the pictures: blue, broken in several places. It happened quickly, I did not even have time to open my mouth in surprise. But after her, ball lightning immediately flew into the room. She stopped right in the middle of the room. I watched her with all my eyes, not a bit scared, it was so unusual. Lightning looked like a red soap bubble, only filled inside with some kind of quivering substance. I saw her for about two seconds, after which the fireball, without saying goodbye, flew out the window after the first guest. It seemed to me that the second pursued the first. Fear came later. So I became one of the few who managed to encounter an unusual and mysterious phenomenon - ball lightning!

Quite a bit of history

Where, who and when first saw and recorded ball lightning on paper or drawing is unknown. The pioneers of the heavenly miracle are many people, scientists and countries.

The majestic phenomenon of nature - ball lightning

There were written references to the mysterious luminous balls in the Roman annals of 106 BC. There, fireballs were compared to fiery birds that carried red-hot coals in their beaks.

Many descriptions of celestial miraculous balls in medieval European sources(Portuguese, French, English).

A documented case occurred in England in Devon in 1638, when a fiery hooligan wounded 60 people, killed four and did other misfortunes.

The Frenchman F. Arago described thirty cases of the appearance of ball lightning and eyewitness observations of them.

eyewitness accounts

“A bright ball stretched out from the socket. He separated from her and, like a soap bubble, floated around the room, shimmering with all the colors of the rainbow. It froze for a short time over the desk and sucked back into the socket, but already another one. At that moment, I was sure that I was hallucinating.”

But in general, science somehow showed little interest in this unusual celestial phenomenon until the middle of the twentieth century, when it was taken seriously.

The fact is that at that time work in the field was intensified, and many famous scientists, for example, Pyotr Kapitsa, had a hand in the study of ball lightning.

One of the forms of matter is plasma

Today, interest in ball lightning is among scientists is great. Conferences, seminars, symposiums are held on this topic, candidate and doctoral dissertations are defended.

Unfortunately, despite the huge amount of information, descriptions and observations, ball lightning continues to be a mystery and leads among the mysterious, incomprehensible and dangerous natural phenomena.

What kind of natural phenomenon is ball lightning? Hypotheses

Believe it or not, there are almost half a thousand hypotheses and theories about the nature of ball lightning. In a short note it is not possible to state even a small part of them, we will limit ourselves to the most popular and exotic ones.

• The first hypothesis that has come down to us about the origin of the fiery miracle was put forward by Peter van Muschenbrook. He suggested that fireballs are swamp gases condensed in the upper atmosphere. They ignite as they go down.

• The Russian scientist Petr Leonidovich Kapitsa believed that ball lightning is a discharge that occurs without electrodes, which is caused by microwaves of unknown origin that exist between clouds and the earth.
• There is a theory that fireballs consist of balls of burning silicon that are formed when lightning strikes the ground.
• Many famous physicists In the 19th century, for example, Faraday or Kelvin considered lightning to be an optical illusion.
• According to Turner's theory, it appears due to thermochemical reactions that occur in water vapor in a strong electric field.
• It is believed that ball lightning is microscopic nuclear explosions or miniature black holes.
• Some researchers consider them alive and endow lightning with intelligence.
• Others call the guests from heaven instruments created by an unknown mind to explore our world.

• A group of ufologists agree that the fiery ladies are aliens from parallel world where life proceeds according to different physical laws. Having collected information, they dive into their own world, and, dropping it, reappear in ours, but in a different place. During thunderstorms, there is a surge of energy, and then portals to other worlds open.

Ball lightning shape

Based on the name "Ball", we can confidently say that the main form is a ball, a fireball (fireball).

In fact, the electric lady loves, like a real lady, often to change clothes and the form can take the most strange and unusual. Ball lightning has been seen in the form of a bright ribbon, a drop, a mushroom, a jellyfish, a long elongated egg, a pancake, a rugby ball. It is not known what her real appearance is, most likely it does not exist.

eyewitness accounts

“A bright red ball with a diameter of twenty centimeters slowly floated out of the hallway. Then he quickly took the form of a long whip and, quite silently, slipped out of the room through the keyhole. There were no marks left on the door.

Ball lightning color

A guest from heaven is a real fashionista, she can change her color instantly, without resorting to long and tiring make-up. In her cosmetic bag the whole range of colors.

Fireballs come in all colors from black to white. It makes no sense to list them, there is literally the whole gamut. Most often, lightning dresses up, orange, white and green. The tail paints according to mood. It also changes the color of its translucent shell.

Black ball lightning

A matte black sky wanderer regularly appears from the ground in Black Glade. This is a place in a small town near Pskov. It began to be observed in these places long ago, after the fall of the Tunguska meteorite in 1908. She appeared in the same place, which later led scientists to the idea of ​​fixing her appearance and measuring the temperature with the help of instruments. Alas, the efforts were in vain, over and over again, the researchers found devices in a molten state.

Ball lightning temperature

It is unlikely that someone will tell you the exact temperature of the plasma beauty. Most often, the temperature scale jumps from 100 to 1000 degrees. At a thousand (slightly higher), steel is already melting. Some scientists claim that the temperature of ball lightning reaches three million degrees. The number is incredible!

Only one thing can be stated with certainty - there is no cold ball lightning, and negative temperatures are not mentioned anywhere. But explosions in contact with any objects are often remembered. There are also numerous cases of fires and ignitions of objects that are out of place in the path of the fireball.

Ball lightning lifetime

In the laboratory, scientists have several times received ball lightning or its likeness. She lived for a few seconds. It is very difficult to determine the time of its existence in nature, because no one observed ball lightning from the moment of its birth to death. In addition, it is unlikely that anyone, faced with this phenomenon, will note the time by the clock, so the sensations of the observers are subjective.

However, comparing the facts and the memories of eyewitnesses, scientists came to the conclusion that the life of most ball lightning is short-lived: from 7 to 40 seconds. Although there are references to hours and even days of observation of this fiery object. We don't know how reliable they are.

eyewitness accounts

“The storm was terrible, after another lightning strike, a huge fireball began to descend from the ceiling into the room. I, beside myself, jumped out into the closet and slammed the door. Sat there for a long time. When the storm ended, she cautiously opened the door. It smelled of burning, the old clock hanging on the wall turned into a melted shapeless lump. Everything else was in order."

Death of ball lightning

Often, a fiery witch furnishes her demise with pomp. Her death is accompanied by explosions when colliding with objects or buildings, which leads to severe fires. There are references when animals, people, and even water from lakes and swamps evaporate into the air during an explosion. And it happens that ball lightning explodes in enclosed spaces, apartments, but without causing harm to either the environment or people! Sometimes it just evaporates, disappears quietly and imperceptibly.

Secrets of ball lightning

The fiery lady appears most often during a thunderstorm, but sometimes she goes out for a walk in sunny weather.

She does not tolerate satellites, therefore. She can swim out from behind a tree or a pole, descend from a cloud, or suddenly appear from around a corner. There are no walls or barriers for her. Ball lightning easily penetrates into enclosed spaces, sometimes crawling out of sockets. There is a known case when she flew into the cockpit.

The behavior of ball lightning is completely unpredictable. Flight speed, trajectory does not correspond to any calculations. Sometimes, it seems that lightning is endowed with reason and instincts. It can fly around the trees, houses, lampposts that appear in front of it, or it can, as if blinded, crash into them.

Uninvited guests often fly into houses through chimneys, open windows and vents. In several cases, ball lightning, trying to enter the apartment, melted the glass, leaving behind a perfect round hole.

Eyewitnesses said that after the explosion, the smell of sulfur remained in the air for a long time, as if the fiery guest was a messenger from hell.

It is not clear what influences the lightning flight path. These are not people and not animals, since she can fly around them, she can swim against him.

The speed can instantly change from a few centimeters to hundreds of meters per second.

eyewitness accounts

“I watched the storm from the window of my apartment from the first floor. Suddenly, a red ball bounced along the asphalt path. I thought the kids forgot about it. But suddenly he collided with a bench and exploded with a loud noise. I was blind for a few minutes. The bench caught fire."

If we are talking about the thermal properties of ball lightning, then everything here is generally incomprehensible. Sometimes, under heavy pouring rain, she can burn down a huge wet oak, and sometimes, waking up to a person, she leaves no traces on him.

But this is not always the case, more often a meeting with a fiery monster threatens a person with injury, burns and death. We will talk further about how to avoid this.

VIDEO: 10 facts about ball lightning

How to behave

If, God forbid, during a thunderstorm you met with ball lightning in an open area! Adhere to the following rules of conduct in this extreme situation.

• Leave slowly and without sudden movements.
• Never attempt to run or turn your back on the fireball.
• If you notice that ball lightning is heading towards you, freeze, hold your breath, try not to move. Most likely, after a few seconds, she will lose interest in you and leave.
• Do not try to throw any objects at it, if they collide with them, an explosion may occur.

Ball lightning: how to escape if it appeared in the house?

For an unprepared person, the appearance of ball lightning in an apartment will be a shock, no one is prepared for this. However, try not to panic, because panic can lead to a fatal error, because lightning reacts to air movement. Therefore, the most universal advice is to stand still, do not move, breathe less often.

1. What to do if ball lightning is near your face? Lightly blow on it, it is likely that the ball will fly off to the side.
2. Do not touch metal objects.
3. Do not try to run, do not make sudden movements, freeze.
4. If there is an entrance to another room nearby, try to slowly make your way there.
5. Move smoothly and slowly, and most importantly, do not turn your back on the fireball.
6. Do not try to drive it away from you with your hands or objects, you risk provoking lightning to explode.
7. In this case, serious trouble awaits you. Burns, trauma, loss of consciousness, cardiac spasms are possible.

How to help the victim

An electric shock from a ball lightning discharge can lead to very serious consequences. If you encounter such a situation and see that a person is injured, urgently transfer him to another place. The charge in his body is gone, so don't be afraid. Lay on the floor and call an ambulance. If it occurs, give the victim artificial respiration. If the injuries are not severe and the person is conscious, before calling an ambulance, give him a couple of analgin tablets, put a wet towel on his head and drip soothing drops.

How to save yourself

• During a thunderstorm, people often behave carelessly, unaware of the real danger that threatens them. Most people get struck by lightning in nature.
• How to protect yourself from a fireball in the forest? Don't stand under a lonely tree. It is better to hide in the undergrowth or a low grove. Lightning rarely strikes birches and conifers.
• Get rid of metal objects. Throw a gun, umbrella, fishing rod, shovel, etc. away from you. Then pick.
• Don't lie down on the ground, don't bury yourself in a haystack, just squat down to wait out the storm.
• If you are in a car during a thunderstorm, stop, turn off the engine, and do not touch metal objects. Before that, drive away from tall trees to the side of the road and lower the antenna.
• How to behave in the house and should you worry if you are under a safe, as it seems to you, roof? Alas, a lightning rod will not help you in case of ball lightning.
• An even more dangerous situation is if a thunderstorm caught you in the steppe. Squat down, do not tower over the landscape. You can hide in a ditch if there is one nearby, but if the ditch fills with water, leave immediately.
• If you are on the water, in a boat, don't get up. Row slowly, smoothly towards the shore. When you land, move away from the water.
• Remove all metal jewelry from yourself, turn off your mobile phone. His call can attract a fireball.
• If you are in a country house, close the chimney and windows. Although glass is not always a barrier to ball lightning. It can seep through it, as well as through sockets.
• If there is a thunderstorm outside the windows, and you are in the apartment, do not take risks, turn off electrical appliances, do not touch metal objects. Disconnect all external antennas and do not make phone calls.

VIDEO: Where can you see ball lightning?

The story of student Sergei Ogorodnikov

Ball lightning and light bulbs are maternal relatives

A funny story was told by Sergei Ogorodnikov.

On Saturday morning my father called me. His voice was excited. The parent now and then interrupted for pauses, although he spoke slowly, in a whisper and uttered the words, as if fearing something. The day before, she and her mother went to the garden for the weekend, brought seedlings, some jars, old clothes, in short, the usual sadistic deeds.

Seryozha, urgently call the fire brigade to us and call the television, let them also come immediately.

His excitement was immediately transferred to me. My father is a reasonable man, calm, does not drink, and it did not occur to me to suspect him of a prank, fear was too clearly read in his voice.

Dad, what happened, - I was confused, - you yourself can call everyone.

I have only one call, the second is not in stock, otherwise she will notice us.

Who will notice? “I still didn't understand anything.

Lightning! Ball lightning flew into our house. It hangs right above the door, doesn’t move, so we can’t go out, and I won’t be able to call again, and I can’t speak loudly, it monitors air vibrations.

Where is mom? “I was already scared.

Lying on the couch, sleeping, I forbade her to move, so she fell asleep.

While the firefighters are coming to you, lightning can mess things up, try to get out the window.

It won’t work, two more of the same are waiting for us outside the window.

Two lightning?!

Ball?

What else? Of course spherical. They probably found out that I broke the light bulb the day before yesterday.

What light bulb?

Normal - 100 watts.

What's with the light bulb?

Don't you know what they are?

Lightning and light bulbs.

It was already nonsense. I could still believe in ball lightning, but about the other two outside the window and about the fact that light bulbs and lightning are relatives! And why is mom calmly on the couch? Something was wrong. I tried to give my voice confidence and said, "Wait, help will arrive soon."

Thank God, my car was not in the garage, but under the window, which probably saved their lives. I drove like crazy, without fear, fortunately, no one slowed me down, and the road was surprisingly free. We have a site near the city, so I arrived quickly. There were no lightning in front of the house. And yet I cautiously opened the door, it (another lucky coincidence) was not locked.

Mother was actually lying on the sofa, her face was gray. My father lay on the floor next to me, looking no better. The air in the room was heavy and thick, it seemed that you could touch it with your hands. For some reason, I think that it is carbon monoxide, although I have never burned myself in my life.

Heating in our house is stove, wood. He immediately opened the door and secured it with a stool. One by one, he dragged his parents out into the fresh air. Immediately called an ambulance, explained that two people were dying from carbon monoxide. While the doctors were driving, I soaked two towels and put them on their heads. I didn't know what to do next.

Fortunately, the car arrived quickly, my parents were loaded onto a stretcher, and I went with them. Thanks to the doctors, everything ended well. Now we remember this case. But my parent does not remember about the bell, lightning and light bulbs.

We wondered for a long time why such a fantasy came to the mind of a man who was one step away from death. Then my father remembered that, shortly before going to the garden, he had looked documentary about ball lightning, which made a strong impression on him. I think that if it was a film about the phenomenon of time, wormholes and black holes, then it would not be fireballs attacking his befuddled head, but from a parallel universe.

Ball lightning is a rare and little-studied phenomenon, but no less dangerous for that. The first mention of it dates back to the 2nd century BC, when the annals told about mysterious phenomena that took place in Rome. Similar precedents also occurred in the Middle Ages. IN modern world the study of the nature of the occurrence of ball lightning began in the 19th century, when D. Arago described this phenomenon. Since then, there have been many studies, but humanity still cannot unravel its secret, and therefore it is so afraid. We will try to figure out why ball lightning is dangerous, as well as how to protect yourself from it.

The specifics of the impact of ball lightning

Such a phenomenon is usually striking in its brightness. In this case, the color of lightning can be very different:

• dazzling white;
• blue-blue;
• black;

But the most common shades are:

• orange;
• red;
• yellow.

Ball lightning can appear both in good weather, for example, on a sunny July morning, and during a thunderstorm. Science does not fully know the nature of its occurrence, because it can manifest itself both in open space: inside the clouds, in the air, above the ground; and indoors, including residential buildings, through a socket or window glass. The actual temperature of ball lightning is also unknown to scientists. According to their forecasts, it can fluctuate greatly: some experts believe that it is equal to 1000 ° C, while others think that it is a little more than 100 ° C. Lightning can abruptly change its direction in the process of movement. There are cases of the appearance of ball lightning simultaneously with the usual linear one. This relationship has not yet been accurately described, but this fact exists. This variability explains the difficulty in studying ball lightning. Many experts believed that such a phenomenon does not exist at all, but this is just some kind of optical illusion.

People who have encountered this effect say (and scientists echo them) that the phenomenon can be divided into 2 types:

1. A red object descends from the sky. When it hits something, it explodes.
2. It moves parallel to the earth's surface, power plants, transmission lines and even household appliances serve as a source of attraction for it.

The inhabitants, albeit unreliable, but the most informed source, so scientists often turn to them when studying this issue. Many people point out that it "hisses", and the duration of its glow ranges from fractions of a second to half a minute. For scientists, it is still a big mystery how ball lightning is formed, because we can observe it only at the final stage of its existence. Also of particular interest is its shape. That is why a number of hypotheses regarding this phenomenon are put forward.

Where does ball lightning come from

It is extremely difficult for scientists to describe the nature of its occurrence, since it is very difficult to capture it. It is not easy to take a photo of ball lightning, because this phenomenon sometimes lasts for a fraction of a second. Some witnesses claim to have seen a long glow. Sometimes it just quietly disappears, but there are times when it explodes and you can get a real ball lightning strike.

Many important points need to be explained:

1. Creation conditions. After all, there is evidence indicating that it appeared not only in a thunderstorm, but also on an ordinary sunny day.
2. The structure of matter. Ball lightning can pass through glass, walls, openings and at the same time restore its original shape.
3. The nature of radiation. Whether energy is taken only from the surface or from the entire volume of the ball.

D. Arago, who was one of the first to become seriously interested in this issue, believed that this phenomenon arises due to the fact that nitrogen and oxygen interact with the release of energy. This hypothesis was developed by another scientist - Ya. Frenkel. He argued that the ball contains active gases formed as a result of this reaction. Based on this, we can say that the energy is located inside the object.

The physicist P. Kapitsa did not agree with this assumption. He believed that the reason for everything was the additional energy in the form of radio waves resulting from electromagnetic oscillations between the clouds and the earth during a thunderstorm. It accumulates and at some point begins to interact with a natural phenomenon. But this theory is also imperfect, because does not explain the appearance of ball lightning on sunny days.

Thanks to observations from the ground and air, the dimensions of existing spark charges are now well known. Their size ranges from 1 cm to 1 m or more. Most often, people have to deal with lightning with a diameter of 10-20 cm.

M. Yuman tried to repeat this process in the laboratory, but his experience failed. In order to find out the speed of ball lightning, its structure and features, it is necessary to regularly conduct experiments. However, since they are all very complex and costly, their implementation in practice is constantly delayed.

How to escape from ball lightning

Ball lightning poses a great danger to humans. As a result of contact with it, you will at best get off with a serious burn, and more often there are incidents with a fatal outcome. Most importantly - do not twitch sharply and panic. If you do not know what to do, if there is a ball lightning nearby, then the simplest advice is not to run. She is very susceptible to various fluctuations in the air, so she will immediately follow you, and her speed is much higher.

It is necessary to try to get away from the path along which the object is moving, while it is strictly forbidden to turn your back on it. Stay as far away from all your gadgets as possible, and avoid contact with synthetic materials as they are very electrifying. If you are wearing such clothes, then it is better to just freeze and stay in place. Then there is a chance that the threat will simply pass by. If this could not be avoided, and the victim has burns, then you need to send him to a ventilated room, and then wrap him up warmly. It is necessary to try to help the victim by giving artificial respiration, if necessary. This will help to stabilize his condition a little. However, the first thing you need to immediately contact the ambulance. Now you know what to do when meeting with ball lightning.

It doesn’t matter if you encounter a phenomenon on the street or in an apartment, do not try to disturb its structure in any way (for example, by throwing something inside). By doing this, you can only harm yourself, since the probability of an explosion is greatly increased. How to escape from ball lightning in the house?

Immediately warn your loved ones or colleagues (if you are at work) about the existing threat. Also try to prevent panic. It is necessary to approach the window as carefully as possible and open the window. There is a good chance that the ball will just come out. At the same time, you need to be as collected as possible, not to hesitate, but also not to allow sudden movements.

Ball lightning not only easily passes through walls, but is also capable of completely destroying even a strong building. In order to prevent this, it is better to make sure that your home is safe in advance. We recommend that you read the article “Protecting your home from a direct lightning strike. Lightning protection: lightning rod, lightning rod, grounding device. It contains all the relevant security measures.

Places where fireballs happen

It is simply impossible to predict any specific place of appearance, so no one is protected from such a threat. There were cases when the repeated appearance of this effect in one area was recorded. Ball lightning in the city near Pskov was seen several times a year. But at the same time, the nature of its occurrence remained unknown. Scientists even tried to calculate it, but the destructive power was so great that all the instruments became unusable. There is a chronicle from other places confirming the danger of this phenomenon, for example, INCREDIBLE shots with ball lightning (5 videos):

The consequences can be dire. You already know what ball lightning looks like, so you can imagine the extent of its destructive effect. At best, it will take a long time to heal. It all depends on the degree of burns received and on the strength of the discharge. Hearing and vision are severely damaged. As mentioned earlier, the flash can be blindingly bright.

Naturally, this also negatively affects the cardiac and muscular systems. The main rule in such cases is to provide prompt and qualified assistance. This will help to save the victim not only life, but also a full-fledged physical state. Photos of eyewitnesses of ball lightning are amazing.

At the same time, history knows interesting cases when, after contact with such an object, people discovered unusual abilities in themselves, their illnesses disappeared. But these are exceptions and miracles, but in reality, if ball lightning hit a person, then he is in big trouble. The probability of receiving a dangerous electrical discharge remains not only while thunder rumbles, but also after. There is a video "Ball Lightning - unique eyewitness videos", in which people are amazed by the phenomenon, not being afraid to film what is happening. In this case, the usual radius is on average 10 km.

Ball lightning, the voltage of which is much higher than ordinary lightning, can permanently cripple life. Therefore, it is worth thinking about your safety right now. This will help you with products and services from the company "Alef-Em", where real professionals work who will take care of you. You need to think about ways to improve the protection of your apartment and not be afraid to face danger.

How to protect yourself from ball lightning with the help of the services we provide

Lightning rods from Alef-Em are reliable protection in emergency situations. It is enough to go to our website and choose the necessary products in order to protect yourself. Our sales consultants, who have extensive experience, will help you with this. You can talk to them on different topics relating to the safety of your home both during a thunderstorm and when ball lightning appears.

You already know how to behave if ball lightning has flown into the house. But using our services, you will be able to minimize, if not completely avoid this probability. The charges will be directed to the ground, such lightning rods have already been tested many times. The main evidence of their quality is not certificates at all, but grateful customer reviews.

Ball lightning can easily fly into a window, but this is ruled out thanks to our systems. They consist of the following parts:

• metal base;
• a device that is located on the roof of the building;
• cable acting as a connector.

It is not enough to know how to behave during ball lightning, you must always be prepared for the worst case scenario. Reliable lightning protection from Alef-M will help to avoid troubles from this natural phenomenon.

Having been working for about ten years, we managed to become real leaders in this segment market. We guarantee a result that will serve you for many years. The methods of our work can be found in the article "Traditional lightning protection of buildings: lightning rod (lightning rod)".

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Ball lightning

Ball lightning

Ball lightning- a luminous ball floating in the air, a uniquely rare natural phenomenon, a unified physical theory of the occurrence and flow of which has not been presented to date. There are about 400 theories explaining the phenomenon, but none of them has received absolute recognition in the academic environment. Under laboratory conditions, similar, but short-term phenomena have been obtained in several different ways, but the question of the unique nature of ball lightning remains open. As of the end of the 20th century, not a single experimental stand was created on which this natural phenomenon would be artificially reproduced in accordance with the descriptions of eyewitnesses of ball lightning.

It is widely believed that ball lightning is a phenomenon of electrical origin, of natural nature, that is, it is a special type of lightning that exists for a long time and has the shape of a ball that can move along an unpredictable, sometimes surprising trajectory for eyewitnesses.

Traditionally, the reliability of many ball lightning eyewitness accounts remains in doubt, including:

• by the very fact of observing at least some phenomenon;
• the fact of observing ball lightning, and not some other phenomenon;
• individual details given in the eyewitness account of the phenomenon.

Doubts about the reliability of many testimonies complicate the study of the phenomenon, and also create grounds for the emergence of various speculative sensational materials allegedly related to this phenomenon.

Ball lightning usually appears in thunderstorm, stormy weather; often, but not necessarily, along with regular lightning. But there is a lot of evidence of its observation in sunny weather. Most often, it seems to “leave” the conductor or is generated by ordinary lightning, sometimes descends from the clouds, in rare cases it suddenly appears in the air or, as eyewitnesses report, it can come out of some object (tree, pillar).

Due to the fact that the appearance of ball lightning as a natural phenomenon is rare, and attempts to artificially reproduce it on the scale of a natural phenomenon fail, the main material for studying ball lightning is the evidence of casual eyewitnesses unprepared for observations, nevertheless, some evidence describes in great detail ball lightning and the reliability of these materials is beyond doubt. In some cases, contemporary eyewitnesses have photographed and/or filmed the phenomenon.

Observation history

Stories about observations of ball lightning have been known for two thousand years. In the first half of the 19th century, the French physicist, astronomer and naturalist F. Arago, perhaps the first in the history of civilization, collected and systematized all evidence of the appearance of ball lightning known at that time. In his book, 30 cases of observation of ball lightning were described. The statistics are small, and it is not surprising that many physicists of the 19th century, including Kelvin and Faraday, were inclined during their lifetime to believe that this was either an optical illusion or a phenomenon of a completely different, non-electrical nature. However, the number of cases, the detail of the description of the phenomenon and the reliability of the evidence increased, which attracted the attention of scientists, including prominent physicists.

In the late 1940s P. L. Kapitsa worked on the explanation of ball lightning.

Huge contribution the work on the observation and description of ball lightning was introduced by the Soviet scientist I.P. Stakhanov, who, together with S.L. Lopatnikov, in the journal Knowledge is Power in the 1970s. published an article on ball lightning. At the end of this article, he attached a questionnaire and asked eyewitnesses to send him their detailed recollections of this phenomenon. As a result, he accumulated extensive statistics - more than a thousand cases, which allowed him to generalize some of the properties of ball lightning and offer his theoretical model of ball lightning.

Historical evidence

Thunderstorm at Widecombe Moor
On October 21, 1638, lightning appeared during a thunderstorm in the church of the village of Wydecombe Moor, Devon, England. Eyewitnesses said that a huge fireball about two and a half meters across flew into the church. He knocked out several large stones and wooden beams from the walls of the church. Then the ball allegedly broke the benches, broke many windows and filled the room with thick dark smoke with the smell of sulfur. Then it split in half; the first ball flew out, breaking another window, the second disappeared somewhere inside the church. As a result, 4 people died and 60 were injured. The phenomenon was explained by the "coming of the devil", or "hell fire" and blamed for everything on two people who dared to play cards during the sermon.

Incident aboard the Catherine & Marie
In December 1726, some British newspapers printed an extract from a letter from a certain John Howell, who was on board the sloop "Catherine and Mary". “On August 29, we were walking along the bay off the coast of Florida, when suddenly a ball flew out of a part of the ship. He smashed our mast into 10,000 pieces, if that were even possible, and blew the beam to pieces. Also, the ball pulled out three boards from the side skin, from the underwater one and three from the deck; killed one man, injured the hand of another, and if it were not for the heavy rains, then our sails would have been simply destroyed by fire.

Incident aboard the Montag
The impressive size of the lightning is reported from the words of the ship's doctor Gregory in 1749. Admiral Chambers, aboard the Montag, went up on deck around noon to measure the ship's coordinates. He spotted a fairly large blue fireball about three miles away. The order was immediately given to lower the topsails, but the ball was moving very fast, and before it could change course, it flew up almost vertically and, being no more than forty or fifty yards above the rig, disappeared with a powerful explosion, which is described as a simultaneous volley of a thousand guns. The top of the mainmast was destroyed. Five people were knocked down, one of them received multiple bruises. The ball left behind a strong smell of sulfur; before the explosion, its value reached the size of a millstone.

Death of Georg Richmann
In 1753, Georg Richmann, a full member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, died from a ball lightning strike. He invented a device for studying atmospheric electricity, so when next meeting heard that a thunderstorm was coming, urgently went home with the engraver to capture the phenomenon. During the experiment, a bluish-orange ball flew out of the device and hit the scientist right in the forehead. There was a deafening roar, similar to the shot of a gun. Richman fell dead, and the engraver was stunned and knocked down. He later described what happened. A small dark crimson speck remained on the scientist's forehead, his clothes were scorched, his shoes were torn. The doorposts shattered into splinters, and the door itself was blown off its hinges. Later, M. V. Lomonosov personally inspected the scene.

The Warren Hastings incident
A British publication reported that in 1809 the Warren Hastings was "attacked by three balls of fire" during a storm. The crew saw one of them go down and kill a man on deck. The one who decided to take the body was hit by the second ball; he was knocked down and had minor burns on his body. The third ball killed another person. The crew noted that after the incident, there was a disgusting smell of sulfur above the deck.

Remarque in the literature of 1864
In the 1864 edition of A Guide to the Scientific Knowledge of Things Familiar, Ebenezer Cobham Brewer discusses "ball lightning". In his description, lightning appears as a slowly moving fireball of explosive gas, which sometimes descends to the earth and moves along its surface. It is also noted that the balls can split into smaller balls and explode "like a cannon shot."

Description in the book Lightning and Glow by Wilfried de Fontvieille
A French author's book reports about 150 ball lightning encounters: “Apparently, ball lightning is strongly attracted to metal objects, so they often end up near balcony railings, water and gas pipes. They do not have a specific color, their shade may be different, for example, in Köthen in the Duchy of Anhalt, lightning was green. M. Colon, Vice-President of the Geological Society of Paris, saw the ball slowly descend along the bark of a tree. Touching the surface of the ground, he jumped and disappeared without an explosion. On September 10, 1845, in the Correze Valley, lightning flew into the kitchen of one of the houses in the village of Salagnac. The ball rolled through the entire room without causing any damage to the people there. When he reached the barn bordering the kitchen, he suddenly exploded and killed a pig accidentally locked there. The animal was not familiar with the wonders of thunder and lightning, so it dared to smell in the most obscene and inappropriate way. Lightning does not move very fast: some have even seen them stop, but this does not make the balls less destructive. Lightning that flew into the church of the city of Stralsund, during the explosion, threw out several small balls, which also exploded like artillery shells.

Case from the life of Nicholas II
Last Russian emperor Nicholas II, in the presence of his grandfather Alexander II, observed a phenomenon that he called a "ball of fire". He recalled: “When my parents were away, my grandfather and I performed the rite of the all-night vigil in the Alexandria Church. There was a strong thunderstorm; it seemed that lightning, following one after another, was ready to shake the church and the whole world right to the ground. It suddenly became completely dark when a gust of wind opened the gates of the church and put out the candles in front of the iconostasis. There was more thunder than usual, and I saw a fireball fly through the window. The ball (it was lightning) circled on the floor, flew past the candelabra and flew out through the door into the park. My heart sank with fear and I looked at my grandfather - but his face was completely calm. He crossed himself with the same calmness as when lightning flew past us. Then I thought that to be frightened like me is inappropriate and unmanly ... After the ball flew out, I again looked at my grandfather. He smiled slightly and nodded at me. My fear disappeared and I was never afraid of a thunderstorm again.

A story from the life of Aleister Crowley
The famous British occultist Aleister Crowley spoke of what he called "ball-shaped electricity" and which he observed in 1916 during a thunderstorm on Pasconee Lake in New Hampshire. He took refuge in a small country house when “I noticed in silent astonishment that at a distance of six inches from my right knee a dazzling ball of electric fire three to six inches in diameter had stopped. I looked at him, and he suddenly exploded with a sharp sound that could not be confused with what was rampant outside: the noise of a thunderstorm, the sound of hail, or streams of water and crackling wood. My hand was closest to the ball and it only felt a slight impact."

Other evidence

During World War II, submariners repeatedly and consistently reported small fireballs occurring in the confined space of a submarine. They appeared when the battery was turned on, turned off, or incorrectly turned on, or in the event of a disconnection or incorrect connection of highly inductive electric motors. Attempts to reproduce the phenomenon using the submarine's spare battery ended in failure and explosion.

On August 6, 1944, in the Swedish city of Uppsala, ball lightning passed through a closed window, leaving behind a round hole about 5 cm in diameter. The phenomenon was not only observed by local residents, but also the lightning tracking system of Uppsala University, which is located in the department for the study of electricity and lightning, also worked.

In 1954, the physicist Domokos Tar observed lightning in a severe thunderstorm. He described what he saw in sufficient detail. “It happened on Margaret Island on the Danube. It was somewhere between 25-27 degrees Celsius, the sky quickly covered with clouds and a strong thunderstorm began. Nearby there was nothing to hide, only a lone bush nearby, which was bent by the wind to the ground. Suddenly, about 50 meters away from me, lightning struck the ground. It was a very bright channel 25-30 cm in diameter, it was exactly perpendicular to the surface of the earth. It was dark for about two seconds, and then a beautiful ball with a diameter of 30-40 cm appeared at a height of 1.2 m. bush. The ball sparkled like a small sun and rotated counterclockwise. The axis of rotation was parallel to the ground and perpendicular to the bush-hit-ball line. The ball also had one or two red curls, but not so bright, they disappeared after a fraction of a second (~0.3 s). The ball itself slowly moved horizontally along the same line from the bush. Its colors were clear, and the brightness itself was constant over the entire surface. There was no more rotation, the movement took place at a constant height and at a constant speed. I didn't notice any size changes. About three more seconds passed - the ball disappeared abruptly, and completely silently, although due to the noise of the thunderstorm I could not hear it. The author himself suggests that the temperature difference inside and outside the channel of ordinary lightning with the help of a gust of wind formed a kind of vortex ring, from which the observed ball lightning was then formed.

On July 10, 2011, in the Czech city of Liberec, ball lightning appeared in the control building of the city's emergency services. A ball with a two-meter tail jumped to the ceiling directly from the window, fell to the floor, bounced again to the ceiling, flew 2-3 meters, and then fell to the floor and disappeared. This frightened the employees, who smelled burnt wiring and believed that a fire had started. All computers hung (but did not break), communication equipment was out of order for the night until it was repaired. In addition, one monitor was destroyed.

On August 4, 2012, ball lightning frightened a villager in the Pruzhany district of the Brest region. According to the newspaper "Rayonnyya Budni", ball lightning flew into the house during a thunderstorm. Moreover, as the hostess of the house, Nadezhda Vladimirovna Ostapuk, told the publication, the windows and doors in the house were closed and the woman could not understand how the fireball entered the room. Luckily, the woman figured out that she shouldn't make any sudden movements, and just stayed where she was, watching the lightning. Ball lightning flew over her head and discharged into the electrical wiring on the wall. As a result of an unusual natural phenomenon, no one was injured, only the interior decoration of the room was damaged, the newspaper reports.

Artificial reproduction of the phenomenon

Review of approaches for artificial reproduction of ball lightning

Since there is a clear connection in the appearance of ball lightning with other manifestations of atmospheric electricity (for example, ordinary lightning), most of the experiments were carried out according to the following scheme: a gas discharge was created (and the glow of a gas discharge is a well-known thing), and then conditions were sought when the luminous discharge could would exist in the form of a spherical body. But researchers have only short-term gas discharges of a spherical shape, living for a maximum of a few seconds, which does not correspond to eyewitness accounts of natural ball lightning.

List of artificially reproduced ball lightning claims

Several claims have been made about the production of ball lightning in laboratories, but in general there has been a skeptical attitude towards these statements in the academic environment. The question remains open: "Are the phenomena observed in laboratory conditions identical to the natural phenomenon of ball lightning"?

• The first detailed studies of a glowing electrodeless discharge were carried out only in 1942 by the Soviet electrical engineer Babat: he managed to obtain a spherical gas discharge inside a low pressure chamber for a few seconds.

• Kapitsa was able to obtain a spherical gas discharge at atmospheric pressure in a helium environment. Additives of various organic compounds changed the brightness and color of the glow.

Theoretical explanations of the phenomenon

In our age, when physicists know what happened in the first seconds of the existence of the Universe, and what is happening in black holes that have not yet been discovered, we still have to admit with surprise that the main elements of antiquity - air and water - still remain a mystery to us.

I.P. Stakhanov

Most theories agree that the reason for the formation of any ball lightning is associated with the passage of gases through a region with a large difference in electrical potentials, which causes the ionization of these gases and their compression into a ball.

Experimental verification existing theories difficult. Even if we count only the assumptions published in serious scientific journals, then the number of theoretical models that describe the phenomenon and answer these questions with varying degrees of success is quite large.

Classification of theories

• On the basis of the location of the energy source that supports the existence of ball lightning, theories can be divided into two classes: external source, and theories that consider that the source is inside ball lightning.

Review of existing theories

• The following theory assumes that ball lightning is heavy positive and negative air ions formed during an ordinary lightning strike, the recombination of which is prevented by their hydrolysis. Under the influence of electric forces, they gather into a ball and can coexist for quite a long time until their water “fur coat” collapses. This also explains the fact that the different color of ball lightning and its direct dependence on the time of existence of the ball lightning itself - the rate of destruction of water "fur coats" and the beginning of the process of avalanche recombination.

see also

Literature

Books and reports on ball lightning

• Stakhanov I.P. On the physical nature of ball lightning. - Moscow: (Atomizdat, Energoatomizdat, Scientific World), (1979, 1985, 1996). - 240 s.
• S. Singer The nature of ball lightning. Per. from English. M.: Mir, 1973, 239 p.
• Imyanitov I. M., Tikhiy D. Ya. Beyond the laws of science. Moscow: Atomizdat, 1980
• Grigoriev A. I. Ball lightning. Yaroslavl: YarSU, 2006. 200 p.
• Lisitsa M. P., Valakh M. Ya. Interesting optics. Atmospheric and space optics. Kyiv: Logos, 2002, 256 p.
• Brand W. Der Kugelblitz. Hamburg, Henri Grand, 1923
• Stakhanov I.P. On the physical nature of ball lightning M.: Energoatomizdat, 1985, 208 p.
• Kunin V. N. Ball lightning at the experimental site. Vladimir: Vladimir State University, 2000, 84 p.

Articles in magazines

• Torchigin V. P., Torchigin A. V. Ball lightning as a concentrate of light. Chemistry and Life, 2003, No. 1, 47-49.
• Barry J. Ball lightning. Bead lightning. Per. from English. M.: Mir, 1983, 228 p.
• Shabanov G.D., Sokolovsky B.Yu.// Plasma Physics Reports. 2005. V31. No. 6. P512.
• Shabanov G.D.// Technical Physics Letters. 2002. V28. No. 2. P164.

Links

• Smirnov B. M."Observational properties of ball lightning"//UFN, 1992, v.162, issue 8.
• A. Kh. Amirov, V. L. Bychkov. Influence of thunderstorm atmospheric conditions on the properties of ball lightning // ZhTF, 1997, volume 67, N4.
• A. V. Shavlov."Parameters of ball lightning calculated using a two-temperature plasma model"// 2008
• R. F. Avramenko, V. A. Grishin, V. I. Nikolaeva, A. S. Pashchina, L. P. Poskacheeva. Experimental and theoretical studies of the features of the formation of plasmoids//Applied Physics, 2000, N3, pp.167-177
• M. I. Zelikin."Plasma superconductivity and ball lightning". SMFS, volume 19, 2006, p.45-69

Ball lightning in fiction

• Russell, Eric Frank"Sinister barrier" 1939

Notes

1. I. Stakhanov "Physicist who knew more about ball lightning"
2. Such a Russian variant of the name is listed in the list of UK telephone codes. There are also variants of Widecomb-in-the-Moor and direct dubbing of the original English Widecomb-in-the-Moor - Widecomb-in-the-Moor
3. Conductor from Kazan saved passengers from ball lightning
4. Ball lightning scared a villager in the Brest region [email protected]
5. K. L. Corum, J. F. Corum “Experiments on the creation of ball lightning using a high-frequency discharge and electrochemical fractal clusters”//UFN, 1990, v.160, issue 4.
6. A. I. Egorova, S. I. Stepanova and G. D. Shabanova, Demonstration of ball lightning in the laboratory, UFN, vol. 174, issue 1, pp. 107-109, (2004)
7. P. L. Kapitsa On the nature of ball lightning DAN USSR 1955. Volume 101, No. 2, pp. 245-248.
8. B.M. Smirnov, Physics Reports, 224 (1993) 151, Smirnov B.M. Physics of ball lightning // UFN, 1990, v.160. issue 4. p.1-45
9. D. J. Turner, Physics Reports 293 (1998) 1
10. E.A. Manykin, M.I. Ozhovan, P.P. Poluektov. Condensed Rydberg matter. Nature, No. 1 (1025), 22-30 (2001). http://www.fidel-kastro.ru/nature/vivovoco.nns.ru/VV/JOURNAL/NATURE/01_01/RIDBERG.HTM
11. A. I. Klimov, D. M. Melnichenko, N. N. Sukovatkin “LONG-LIVING ENERGY-INTENSIVE EXCITED FORMATIONS AND PLASMOIDS IN LIQUID NITROGEN”
12. Segev M.G. Phys. Today, 51 (8) (1998), 42
13. "V. P. Torchigin, 2003. On the nature of ball lightning. DAN, vol. 389, no. 3, pp. 41-44.