How far does lightning/electricity travel through water?
369302
Q: Is it safer to swim in salt water than fresh water if lightning is in the area?\n\nA: It is definitely NOT safe to swim when lightning is in the area in any type of water. Even if current lightning is a few miles away, lightning can pop up in new parts of the storm very quickly. Salt water conducts electricity, which means that it can easily travel through the water toward you. The lightning current may spread out in all directions and dissipate within 20 feet or so, but don’t bet your life on how close the strike will be. As the highest object on the water, you may be the most likely target. \n\nAnswers archive: Lightning safety and survival\nhttp://www.usatoday.com/weather/resources/askjack/archives-lightning-safety.htm\n\n-------------\n\n The voltages involved in lightning are so high that even materials that would normally be considered non-conductive become conductors, including the human body. The voltages are so massive that if they start to travel through a boat's structure - say through its mast - then meet with high resistance (for instance, the hull skin) the current discharge, in its attempt to reach ground, may simply blow a hole in the non-conductive barrier. The safety conscious Captain should make sure that his vessel is properly protected. Reference should be made in detail to the standards for lightning protection as set forth by the American Boat and Yacht Council (ABYC) and the job should be performed by a licensed marine electrician.\n\nCone of Protection from Lightning - Faraday's Cage\nhttp://www.boatsafe.com/nauticalknowhow/lightning.htm\n\n------------------------------\n\nElectrical current can easily travel through them and then to you.\n\nLightning protection tips\nhttp://www.aroundcentralflorida.com/features/lightning/
504825
First off, how big is the lake and what do you mean explode? How bout a square mile and explode means that the water justs bursts right out. Well, electricity isn't really matter, it's a current. So any electricity you put into the lake would leave immediately. Thus, you would have to put a tremendous amount of power all at once. Frankly, I don't think you could do it, because we can't even produce as much electricity as is in a lightning bolt in one second. A lightning strike would only affect one small section of the lake. Thus it would take multiple lightning strikes right next to each other.
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Pure water is *not* a good conductor of electricity.  Dissolved ions are necessary to conduct electricity and at room temperature, there is only 10^-7 mol/L of H+ and OH- in pure water.\n\nDissolving salts (including strong acids) in water greatly increases the conductivity of the solution.\n\nTap water is a modest conductor of electricity because of dissolved ionic minerals and impurities.\n\nHeating water increases its dissociation constant making more H+ and OH- available in solution.
1164752
Here's a website that will explain it for you....http://science.howstuffworks.com/lightning5.htm
1146414
http://science.howstuffworks.com/electricity.htm
574514
Salt water can conduct electricity because there are ions in it. Na+ and Cl- from the salt.\nSee http://www.scienceaid.co.uk/salt.html for more
1184308
the surrounding area that is hit is temporaily electrified (no more than a second or so) this is due to the fact that the sheer size of the ocean, and the fact that water dicipates electricity so quickly.  There really isn't any thing out of the ordinary cept the poor fish that was caught in the affected area might be floating.
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http://science.howstuffworks.com/lightning.htm
318560
For this we have to check the basics of Lightning or a spark. \nLightning is caused due to the difference of static charge between two layers of energy. Our eco-system is composed of layaers of energy always in motion. Air breaks down at 10,000 volts per inch, considering the humidity in the atmosphere. When the charge on the clouds, produced due to friction, exceeds the sparking voltage, a lightning is produced. When a spark is produced, it is like a mad blind dog, searching the easiest path fast. The spark may be caused between two clouds, between the cloud and the Earth, or the cloud or any object in the space. Most of the lightnings are lost in space as the volts per inch for a spark decreases with pressure, being the minimum for free space(Vacuum). Some are also lost amongst the clouds.\nNow let us see what happens to a spark between a cloud and the earth. It is a must for a spark to terminate at the ground, the earth being neutral and a huge resource of electrons. Nothing else has the capacity to provide such magnitude of electrons. Now, in its path, the spark tries to travel the path with least resistance. It is also worth noting that a spark is also associated with production of heat.\nEven though wood is a bad conductor, live green trees with water contents, and rising high in the air were good target for the lightnings. They would burn it and split it while passing through. Now it has better baits - the towers and high rising buildings. A high rise produces a area of lightning shadow around its base. The higher the building, the bigger the area. All the lightnings for that area is absorbed by that building. It is likely that the building will have lightning catchers, which passes them directly to the Earth without letting it do much damage.\nIn cities, it is almost impossible of being thunderstruck.\n\nLet us check the case of rural areas.\nThe danger is when a lightning is produced in wide open space. It has a peculiar tendency to bend. Sometimes, it is amazingly seen to run parallel to the ground. This is caused due to a dry crust or upper coating of the Earth. It acts as an insulator. The lightning bends and tries to find the nearest path to enter the Earth. This might cause hazards. People working in fields; sometimes animals are killed. So, here is the maximum chance of being thunderstruck.\nThe damages caused by a spark varies with the amount of charge still present and the heat already produced. A spark continuously loses its charge content into the surrounding system. Also, it continuously gets warmer as it travels, depending on the system temperature. When, a spark(charge) passes through you, the electrons tend to disrupt your nervous system traffic and the heat burns your tissue. For household voltages, which is 110 volts in countries like USA and 230 volts in countries like India, we feel jolts and cramps in our muscles, which either results in instantaneous withdrawal of the contact part or inability in doing so. The later is surely serious. Now you can compare the effects of a lightning. You will be lucky if the lightning loses most of its charge.\n\nBEST OF YOUR LUCK!
299949
If you are in a boat on a lake during a lightning storm and the lightning hits you or your boat - no matter what it's made of - you will most likely die.\n\nDo not go in a boat on a lake during a lightning storm.
265159
Yes. liquid/fluids have some property called Dielectric Strength, which upon breaking this strength by increasing/applying enough voltage, it conducts electricity.\n\nIn transformers, Oil is used as sheild (insulation) between the coils. But a transformer can burn out when subject to huge voltage that it breaks the oil dielectric strength.\n\nSalt water conducts electricity very well. Do not stand high above the electricity lines and piss over the wires. You will sure die. :)\n\nBut PURE WATER DOES NOT CONDUCT ELECTRICITY.
717599
Reference 1 (a trivia site about lightning) claims\nthat it can go as high as 300 million volts.
906441
The "ground" is the point of lowest potential in a circuit. Just as all water runs downhill, all electricity runs eventually to the lowest potential. The "lowest potential" is the "ground," just like the point that all water flows downhill to could be called the "ground." Water is running toward the "ground;" electricity also flows toward the "ground."\n\nAs the electricity moves through things (like resistors), it loses some of its potential (just as water that moves to a different height). A "short circuit" is a very low resistance alternate path around an electrical component. For example, if electricity faces a resistor which is wired in parallel with a piece of wire, most of the electricity (in fact, nearly all) will travel through the wire instead of the resistor. If there is another resistor "downstream" of this parallel combination, then the electricity will reach it with a higher potential. That is, instead of dropping some of its energy across the first resistor, it will retain that energy since it traveled through the wire instead and thus the second resistor will face more potential. \n\nIf a portion of a circuit is "short circuited" to "ground," then that point in the circuit is brought to the lowest potential (this is done by placing a wire in parallel with a large section of circuit such that one end of the wire is placed on the "ground" of the circuit and the other end is placed in the middle of the circuit somewhere). In the water example, if the middle of its original path is "shorted to ground," it's much like reshaping the hill so that the water travels down a steeper incline and hits the "ground" right at that point.\n\nIf an entire circuit is "short circuited" (that is, a wire is placed from the highest potential to the lowest potential) then all of the energy of the circuit must be released through the very low resistance of the wire. (picture water running down a cliff rather than a hill; it has to drop to the "ground" immediately) Because the wire has such low resistance, this will mean that a great deal of current will be generated. This will draw so much power from the voltage source that the intrinsic resistances in the voltage source (as well as the low resistance in the wire) will start to heat up. This can damage the voltage source and the wire.\n\nTo keep going with the water analogy, imagine a water pump supplying a constant pressure to a water circuit. That pressure is much like a voltage. If the circuit uses very small diameter pipe and places objects (wheels, balls, and other things that can be moved around by wire) in the flow, it will be easy to maintain high pressure without much current. Water will quickly back-up as it stresses to get through the small pipe. However, if a large pipe is used instead (or simply no pipe) then the pump will run as fast as possible in order to try to keep the pressure up. It will most likely fail to be able to provide enough pressure (because the water faces so little resistance and so it doesn't "back up" to the pump) and the motor inside the pump will overheat and could be damaged.
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Lightning travels from the ground up to the clouds, not the other way around.
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According to the book, "It's Raining Frogs and Fishes,"\nby Jerry Dennis, lightning bolts travel at speeds up\nto 93,000 miles per second.  That's pretty darn fast.\nWhat we see as a single lightning flash is actually\nseveral lightning bolts that follow each other so rapidly\nthat our eyes see only a single flash.\n\n**hope this helps.. just let me know.. take care..
555321
I think they've misunderstood.its not speed you are asking about? Depends on the density of the air. light wont travel as far in foggy or smokey conditions as it will under clear conditions.water and air are basically the same thing, different density. That's why it is dark at the bottom of the ocean. It is too dense to penetrate Under clear conditions the distance light will travel if indefinite as far as we know as long as there is nothing interfering or blocking the source
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Moving water -- generally provided by a river -- is used to turn a turbine.  The turbine is wrapped in conductive cable, and the housing is lined with magnets.  Thanks to the Oersted Effect (or maybe the Faraday Effect; I get them mixed up), moving a conductor through a magnetic field generates an electric current.  The stronger the magnets and the more conductor involved, the more current you get -- which is why hydroelectric turbines are so freakin' big.