In which state of matter could you expect to find the molecules of air in the path of a lightning bolt?
149419
Plasma, although I might note that there are more than 4 states of matter, depending on how you define "state".
540399
hey! Air is a mixture of gases thus it is solution, it contains Nitrogen-78%, oxygen-20.9% carbon dioxide0.003% and some rare gases
1157857
Because it travels along the least obstructed air.  As air is sometimes denser at certain elevations the lightning flows along the path of least resistence.
283845
Clearing a few things up:\nlightning can go from cloud to ground, ground to cloud, or cloud to cloud.\nThe charge buildup that causes the lightning is focused in the cloud and on the ground.  But the lightning doesn't go from one to the other and just stop.  The difference in charge becomes large enough to cause a "jump" between the air and ground (or whatever the source/target).  This is like an arc in an electrical current... the voltage builds up to a point where the inhibition of the atmosphere (or wire covering) aren't enough to contain it, cuasing the ions to jump from the one place to the other.  As an aside, lightning is caused by opposite charges building up.  Typical lightning is negative (negative charge flowing to positive charge).  Less common is positive lightning, which is much more powerful/damaging.  The -/+ ions flow to the opposite charge.  Lightning starts wth a stepped leader of particles "reaching out" from the source AND target until a path of low enough resistance is found at which time the lightning strikes.  The path is set and large amounts of ions flow along the path until the charge difference/voltage decreases to a point at which the resistance restrains the flow again.\nThe lightning doesn't stop at the ground when coming from the cloud... it keeps spreading out until the charge difference is neutralized/the energy dissipated.  This can lead to lightning ions travelling large distances into the ground (or along underground phone lines and such).\n\nTired of me talking?  Looking for a point?\nThe point is that you can be hit in the sky!  Partciles of air aren't directly grounded either, but the lightning goes through them.  Humans are less resistant than air (that's why being the tallest object in a thunderstorm is dangerous), so in theory you are the easier path.  And just because you aren't grounded doesn't mean you don't get burned as the lightning passes through you (just as it would if you were grounded).\n\nDoubt the danger is rediculously extreme, but its a threat.
878571
it says that shooting a certain amount of light on metals will cause it to release electrons.Because that means that light actually can do something, it must be a particle, otherwise it would be something that can't really touch other objects and cause something to happen
727800
Those are states of matter (but there's also plasma).  Light isn't matter, it's a wave, like sound.
978787
Air has to liquefy before it can freeze. This is true unless you are at the triple point where gases, liquids and solids co-exist. The problem with air is that it is a mixture of gases, mostly nitrogen and oxygen, each with their own triple points.
373071
On Earth, its a gas- In the universe as a whole, it is likely a plasma found in stars.  On large planets such as Jupiter, likely in a liquid state.  The conditions on Earth are for from normal for the universe in general.
621370
What is air?  It is a mixture of gases, trapped in the gravity of the Earth, that form an envelope around our planet.  It is a mixture of nitrogen (~78%), oxygen (~21%), and the rest small amounts of carbon dioxide, water vapor, argon, neon, carbon monoxide, and traces of other gases.\n\nIf there were no nuclei present, there would be no matter present, and that is the definition of a vacuum.
493265
Yes, it is possible for lightning to strike water.  It happens all the time.  Lightning is the result of a difference in potential between two bodies.  When the potential is great enough, electricity jumps from the negatively charged body to the positively charged body.  The two bodies can be a cloud and a tree, a cloud and the ground or a cloud and water or from one cloud to another.  Therefore, lightning can be cloud to ground, cloud to cloud or even within a cloud.  What happens when the lightening bolt strikes the water is that at the immediate point of the strike, the temperature of the water instantly reaches the boiling point.  Given the extreme temperature of a lightning bolt and the extreme charge, I would suspect that not only is steam formed but a plasma is also likely formed at the immediate point of the strike.  As to what happens to any biological life at the point of the strike, it would depend on how near they are to the strike.  The closer they are to it, the more likely that they could be killed by the sudden change in temperature and potential.
1140417
There is a great article to read on this, from How Stuff Works.  Its under "How Lightning Works", but it talks about both lightning and thunder.  My students got a lot out of it.
1106194
Explosions in Space\n\nhttp://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/1998-08/899689009.Ph.r.html\n\nMain excerpts:\n\nOn Earth, the interaction with the surrounding matter, be it air, water, or whatever, means that the initial energy is very quickly, in a few milliseconds, spread out over a fairly large amount of matter, no matter what the nature of the explosive. This material, typically air, forms a luminous fireball that expands at the speed of sound in the air that has been heated by the explosion, which is faster than the speed of sound in ordinary cool air. The result is a shock wave at the surface of the fireball. As the fireball expands it compresses and heats the surrounding air, while losing energy by radiation and also because of the work it is doing on the outside air, all of which causes it to cool. Eventually it cools to the point where it is no longer luminous, the shock wave moves out ahead and makes the BANG! that we hear and that may knock down buildings, and a cloud of swirling debris, smoke, and maybe brownish nitrogen oxides are left behind.\n\nIn space, the first few milliseconds proceed as they would in air (say), but then the transfer of energy to the surrounding air never takes place. As a result the initial small, intensely hot fireball simply keeps expanding at very high speed, and the expanding gases and any fragments fly off in straight lines. The fireball cools by radiation at first, but as its density drops it becomes so transparent that radiation is suppressed. For a chemical high explosive, the expansion speed would be a few thousand feet per second. So for a moderate size explosive -- say 1 meter across -- the products will expand to 100 meters in probably less than 0.1 sec, meaning the density will have decreased by a factor of a million, and the visible explosion will effectively be over. Visually the effect would be of a very brief, brilliant flash in a region only a little bigger than the actual extent of the explosive material. Of course there would be no billowing swirling smoke, and any fragments would almost certainly be moving too fast to be visible. The effect would probably be something like that of a big flashbulb.
1015209
BECOZ of gases and light
871918
only in space where there is no air\n\nof  course there no clouds either but electrical spark can still be produced artificially\n\nedit: "a mile away for every second counted: -- make this about 4-5 seconds; the sound speed is about 300m/s
681841
Same principle as neon lighting.  With a neon light you have a gas with current passing through it causing it to emit off a light.  In this case it sounds like a concentration of whatever the specific gas happened to be in the air at the lightning strike, and what you saw was the gas emitting it's light.  Anyone happen to know what gas gives off green light in neon lights?
1138086
Lightning are actually sparks produced when water molecules in the clouds rub against each other, producing friction and therefore heat.  This creates positive and negative charges and they always seek to attract each other.  (like a magnet)\n\nThus, lightning can acutally shoot anywhere it wants to, as long as there is a negative in one place and a positive charge in the other.  Lightning also tends to hit the closest object within range.  Contrast to popular belief, metallic objects do not attract lightning.  They just conduct the electricity better than other insulators, and of course, the shock will be greater.
98380
.   There is something called ball lightning. It drifts slowly along and can release its energy by exploding. I read that it had been reproduced in the lab using super high voltage generators.\n.    The light from a lightning bolt travels at the speed of light but the lightning bolt travels much slower. A lightning bolt consists of ionized atoms physically moveing through the air from the cloud toward the ground and a charge comeing up from the ground to meet it. I believe the whole process takes one hundreth of a second.