thunderstorms

[Maker]

I'll take it in the field next to my house and hide in a faraday cage, then I'll be safeish. Support it a foot off the ground with big insulators so there's a gap between the poles and the ground, then put things in the gap and blow them up vaporise them. What's not to like?

 

[Maker]

Take some rebar down to the beach during a lightning storm and make some glass trees...

 

[Turbo]

Sometime in the early 1980's lightening struck a large tree in our neighboring country estate. The inside of the tree was hollow and full of water. The lightening instantly turned the water to steam and blew the tree apart in a huge explosion, heard for miles around. Parts of the tree were found 500m away!

The explosion was that loud that everyone thought that it was an IRA terrorist bomb so a full scale military operation was launched, soldiers and helicopters everywhere!

 

[PTvor]

What do you think to attaching a few lengths of scaffold pole end to end and sticking it in the air? I'm gonna catch me some lightening one way or another.

Benjamin Franklin flew a kite in a thunderstorm and noticed that the bristles on the string stood up and he could draw a spark from the string with his hand.

A Russian who tried to repeat the experiment a time later was killed.

The modern way to create an artificial lightning strike is to fire a rocket trailing a wire into a thunder cloud.

It's not catching the lighting strike that's the problem, it's what happens once you've caught it.

 

[roofman]

I'll take it in the field next to my house and hide in a faraday cage, then I'll be safeish. Support it a foot off the ground with big insulators so there's a gap between the poles and the ground, then put things in the gap and blow them up vaporise them. What's not to like?

sounds more interesting than frying ants with a magnifing glass anyway

 

[BChild]

It's not catching the lighting strike that's the problem, it's what happens once you've caught it.

You know that rings a bell but it wasn't lightning being discussed