what is ball lightning?
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BALL LIGHTNING does not look like "lightning." Instead, it usually appears as a mysterious glowing sphere which drifts horizontally through the air. It is typically the size of a grapefruit, but sometimes appears as small as a pea, or as large as a bus. It sometime hovers at a few feet or tens of feet altitude, but can also bounce along the ground. It usually lasts only a few seconds, but sometimes persists much longer. Various colors of "BL" have been seen, sometimes it changes colors, and sometimes it has internal structures such as glowing layers or moving sparks. Sometimes it disappears silently, other times it explodes with extreme violence.
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lighting bolts are very much jagged. Actually its composed of a number of straight lines. \n\nLighting is a spark between two clouds/ a cloud and the gound.This has to go through air (insulator). The conductivities of air are dissimilar at differnet places. So, the lightning goes through different layers of air through different paths. The discharge will take place between two points which has highest charge density. These points in air are not present in a staight line. Thus following these points lightning becomes jagged.
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YEARS ago I saw a video shot in a lab..   They a kinda of box about 5 feet square and it was all wrapped in cellophane.  Not sure what gas was in the box but it exploded.   A ball about 4 inches floated out of the explosion and out of the room.  The whole thing lasted maybe 3 seconds.\n\nThey said it was ball lighting..
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Ball and stick - Ball is the atom, stick is the bond to another atom. It's the typcial model one would normally see.\n\nSpace-Filling - Essentially Balls touching eachother, sharing electrons (that's the bond). Best visual of this may be if you imagine a 3D Image of the Olympic Rings. Unlike the Ball and stick model, the space between the atoms is "Filled"
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Sparks represent a very high flow of electrons (often at very high voltages) that leap from one material to another.  These can disrupt the electron shells of atoms and molecules in the materials involved.  Sparks would likely melt J-ello but have nil effect on certain tough materials like tungsten (used as light bulb filaments).  The contacts of electric swithces (or the "points" in a car's distributor) must be very good conductors to handle and distribute a spark "attack" without erosion.  Copper (as phospher-bronze), silver and gold make good contacts and are used in long life switches.  Lesser materials may pit or heat treat from the intense flow of electrons in a spark.  The design of large circuit breakers is an art and a science because the high tension spark forms an arc that must be extinguished.  For those who enjoy being in the "limelight" it was originally produced by burning lime with pure oxygen but was replaced by "arc lights" using carbon electrodes that eroded with use.  (links 1 and 2)
221936
Thunder is the sound of the shockwave caused when lightning instantly heats the air around it to up to 30 000 °C (54 000 °F). That super-heated air expands rapidly, then contracts as it cools. The rapid expansion/contraction generates sound waves, making the sound that is called "thunder."\n\nSince sound and light travel at different speeds through the atmosphere, one can time the interval between them to roughly estimate how far away the bolt of lightning is. The speed of sound in air is approximately 332 m/s (742.6 mph), while the speed of light is so fast that the lightning is seen only a few microseconds after the event, so the lightning is approximately one kilometer distant for every 3 second interval (one mile for every 5 seconds).
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The initial noise comes from the superheated air surrounding a bolt of lightning moving at high speeds, creating a fairly high pitched CRACK.  The "rolling" thunder sound is caused by that superheated air "pushing" (via air pressure in case you were wondering) the air around it.  Kinda cool to think that all we are hearing is friction of air molecules at different speeds, huh?
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Lightning is electricity. When the clouds build up too much electrons and the voltage between the cloud and the ground is great enough to cause air to break down and conduct, you get lighting. Its like a spark.
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I believe they are refering to sheet lightning that never touches the ground. In the tropics it can be extremely brilliant lighting up the sky like a neon glow.
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Ballbearings are dropped as a liquid in a vaccuum,are cooled on the way down, and hit the floor as a solid.\nLater,\nI watched a video on it in my Manufacturing Processes Class while in Mechanical Engineering. I suppose that would be my source, Mr_ Mars...
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Firecracker, firework.\n\nIn common lingo, mercun is firecracker. Firework is another word, which is "bunga api".
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Thunder is just noise.  The electrical charge from the lightning is what does the damage.
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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.
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Electricity is  flow of electrons in a conductive material like copper or any metals.  The atoms in the conductor are passing the electrons to the next atom in sequence (current flow in Ampere unit). \n\nAnalogy: \nYou can imagine people in line, passing balls in sequence to the next person until the balls reached the other end.\n\nThe force behind the movement of electrons (potential difference in Volt unit), is due to the excessive supply of electron (negative) from one end and lack of supply (Positive) from the other end. (They flow downstream like water).\n\nImagine if you connect two ends of wire to the positive and negative side of the battery. (But don't do it. That is called; short circuit)\n\nIf the wire is cut in the middle and you connect a light bulb between the two cut ends, The light bulb will glow. \n\nHere is the reason;\n\nBecause the light bulb filament (also a metal but doesn't melt easily) is smaller than the wire conductor and does not easily allow the passage of electron (resistance in Ohm unit), The flow of electron will be restricted to a certain amount (like a bottleneck in a pipe) this restriction will cause heat and light due to friction.\n\nMy best tailored answer for you ;=)
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Fireworks, which are also known as pyrotechnics, are basically devices that contain burning compounds. The most common type of display firework is the aerial shell, which is fired from a mortar tube. These fireworks typically have four components: a lift charge, a time-delay fuse, a breaking charge and a light/effect generator. The lift charge is generally black powder, a compound that burns rapidly and propels the shell from its tube. The lift charge also ignites the delay fuse when it fires. The delay fuse is usually a black powder fuse with a delay of a few seconds, and it is designed to ignite the break charge when the shell reaches the appropriate height. The purpose of the break charge, which sits at the center of the lofted shell, is to explode, thereby igniting and scattering the shell's contents. This break charge is generally finer-grained black powder than the lift charge and more highly confined, which causes the shell to explode. The payload of the shell usually comprises small spherical pellets of pyrotechnic composition designed to generate light. These capsules burn from the outside inward, and color changes are obtained by layering different compositions on top of one another.
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The exact nature of the ball lightning is still unknown. Some UFO enthusiasts, however, believe them to be some kind of intelligence or come from some kind of intelligence.
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.   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.