Ball lightning... sustained fireball in lab

[kev ferrara]

Here's a short kinda cool, kinda boring video of a induced ball of fire. There's been lots of speculation about so-called ball lightning and how it happens, so the fact that they've been able to produce this in-lab is a pretty significant step.

http://www.physorg.com/newman/gfx/files/Fireball%20floating.wmv

[Justin.]

Hadouken!

[Serpian]

NERD!;)

[Jason Rainville]

Reminds me of those ceiling blobs in Yoshi's Island.

[egerie]

Justin: lolcoptersetc. ;)

kev: That reminds me of the little (VERY UNSAFE) experiment some people do with their microwaves and "plasma balls"...
Anyhow, thanks for the link; I've always been interested in unusual physics phenomenons and such!

[Joshua Fountain]

I remember the very first time they reproduced ball lightning in a lab. It wasn't sustained like these experiments were but they were trying to mythbust the concept. Turns out ball lightning can occur and can pass through solid materials. What turned the original scientists on to ball lightning experimentation was the claims of ball lightning passing through planes and one guy running from ball lightning in a storm and ran inside his house and it went through his brick wall (leaving a burn mark) and struck him anyways.

[Hyoscine]

That looks awesome! How does the lab stuff relate to natural ball lightning though?

[HunterKiller_]

That reminds me of the little (VERY UNSAFE) experiment some people do with their microwaves and "plasma balls"...


Yes, it looks very much the same to me. You can find those all over Youtube.

Did these guys describe the method used?

[kev ferrara]

Original article: http://www.physorg.com/news122559215.html

[Blue]

Its called plasma. Stick a candle in your microwave and watch. :mod:

[Saturns Gate]

I actually had one of these or something very similar appear about 2 feet away from my head in my parents old house. I was on the phone with my girlfriend at the time in the staircase room downstairs and it was storming outside, was just chatting away, sitting against the wall to the living room when I felt some weird surge of energy and a flashing that was actually IN the house.

Went into the living room and the look on my dads face said it all lol, he looked dumbstruck and sorta freaked out. Said he saw next to the wall about the size of a basketball a ball of energy white light that stopped for a millisecond and sort of shot off. Thats what the energy boom thing was I think. The funny thing was, my mum was asleep on the chair and missed it, she was a bit annoyed. :)

Dad rang up a few places to figure out what the hell it was but no one knew at the time. was was a weird night!

[Blue]

i like how they do it with a grape, no fire necessary. :)

_ux8nSWmAz0

[HunterKiller_]

Its called plasma. Stick a candle in your microwave and watch. :mod:

It's a bit different here, Blue. Read the article.

[Blue]

It's a bit different here, Blue. Read the article.

bah, thats what I get for not reading the whole thread before replying. :dead:

[Moai]

Reminds me of those ceiling blobs in Yoshi's Island.

Yessir, just a couple little blinking eyes and the illusion would be complete. I wonder if it splits into two smaller versions if you jump on it or throw an egg at it.

[Toxdel]

cool, kinda looks like an upside down glowing gumba, yea...

-@ blue, duuuuuuuuuuude, thats awesome, but gosh darn he said don't do it, for some reason I want to do it now.

[2100]

http://sales.starcitygames.com/cardscans/MAGBEA/ball_lightning.jpg

[Professor Az]

If the power line accidentally strikes the ground bus on a X-Y telephone switch, it will vaporize a chunk of the bus bar and create this very same phenomenae. That's -48 VDC running at about 15k Amperes. 1960's era eletronics were fun in their day.

Not like I actually saw it happen, and it scared like, 10 years off of my life, or anything.

:confident

[Dizon]

It's alive! It's ALIVE!!!!

[Molly]

It looks like its trying to find a way out of the tank....someone animate a face on it please? :)

Speaking of plasma - ever used a plasma gun? Its so cool... You use it to cut metal; an electric charge is sent through the metal, and using an airbrush type gun, compressed air is pushed through, it reacts to the charge in the metal and it emits a a thin electric thread that cuts and
carves through sheet metal... You have to wear protective googles and gloves etc, makes ya feel like a Ghostbuster...

[Vhan Juju]

Is anyone else thinking metriod prime? I don't really know why, but as soon as I saw that thing floating around the "tank" that metriod prime music started playing in my head... lol