Does a lightning rod attract or repel lightning?
488816
niether.. a lightening rod is actually a good conductor with plenty of sharp ends or spikes. when a charged cloud(assumed negative) comes near the arrestor, opposite charges are induced in the spikes. these ionise the air in the vicinity which in turn neutralises the cloud. this reduces the potential of the cloud. the negative charge (transferred from the air to the rod) are passed to the ground by connecting wires. thus lightening is prevented by the arrestor.
207734
no, its a myth.  lightning is attracted to tall objects and metal objects (like lightning rods) so these get hit more often.
439061
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.
1165731
That depends on the intensity of the lightning. Due to jolt of thunder, by the reflex action, your eyes are automatically closed and protected. Even if you are in your car, a lightning hit your car, it will conduct the ligtning to the earth without affecting you and your eye. The question is how safely you are kept to lightning. But not the question of lightning distance.
804373
Lighting does indeed strike multiple times in the same place. The Empire State Building in New York City is an obvious example. It is covered with lighting rods to channel lightning strikes safely.\n\nThis old wives tale probably got started because lighting often destroys what it hits. If what previously served as a "lightning rod" has been destroyed, then the lightning probably won't strike there again.
533141
Because they use a lightning rod to conduct the current directly to the ground.
1182843
In my opinion, ESE is a bunch of hot air.  The link below shows a few scientists/engineers that are also opposed to the idea being any more effective than the normal lightning rod.\n\nThe best lightning protection we have now is a well-placed lightning rod system connected with appropriately sized cable.  The cable should lead to a buried rod that is suffiiciently deep.
322890
electrons are negatively charged and like charges repel\n\ntherefore, electrons repel\n\nsimilarly protons repel (two +'s)\n\nbut a proton and electron attract, thus causing atoms, and the universe we live in today
856622
Glad to see you're thinking, but this is an easily answered question.  \n\nTake for example a magnet.  Regardless of what is in front of your magnet it will still attract an object to a distance equal to its strength.\n\nex:\n\n.....(|)<<<< <[]<<<<<<<[]          \n\n......^..............^...... ......^\nMagnet......Metal..... ..Metal\n.................Object.... Object\n\nThe magnet is going to exert force on both of the objects without interference from first object.  \n\nBased on your definition of propagate...come to your own conclusion...that is the joy of thinking...we all have our own thoughts.
548407
Yeah, it does...The truth is, lightning tries to find the shortest distance to ground (The Earth). Although the odds are favorable that lightning won't strike the same place twice, there is nothing in nature to prevent it. It can strike 3 or 4 times in the same spot.
1020854
HahAHaha.  Listen Shawny, these people seriously do NOT know what they are talking about.  But I do, you're talking about lightening without thunder!  Not lightening with thunder but it's so far away you can't hear it.  There is such a thing as lightening with thunder because it's been happening all over here in my area of Texas.\n\nAnd I don't live out in the country, I'm in good ol' Austin.  There's something mysterious surrounding this lightening, not just because there's no thunder, but because you know the lightening is the driving force of the storm and not the other way around.  If that's true, then this lightening must be coming from SPACE.  That's right I said it.  Lightening caused not by the clouds colliding with cold air but by something going on with the Sun.  Anyways, I KNOW this was coming from space because of this one special bolt of lightening that just rocked the house and I'll never forget it.  \n\nIt came down out of the clouds like an anvil, and when it hit the air it's like the air acted like and insulatoragains the electricity and stopped the bolt from coming down anymore.  Well it was THICK at the trunk and it spread out in every direction along the bottom of the clouds, like a ring of electricity or the roots of a tree, causing lightening far out across horizon as far as I could see.  That was just too much energy for me to believe that it was caused by clouds rubbing together, am I right?  Can I get an AMEN?\n\nAnyways, so you know where this lightening is coming from, but what does this have to do with heat lightening?  Well you remember that Earth has a natural electric field right?  Everything that exists from the ground up has a natural electric charge on it.  When the lightening comes in it's basically pulling electrons off of the Earth and pulling energy in.  When these travel through the plasma the air surrounding the bolt is of a way smaller charge and is repelled; this causes the thunder.\n\nSomething is going on in these storms and in Earth's energy fields that allows this energy to be moved easily and with little resistance.  I believe we'll be seeing more of this lightening in the years ahead, you can count on it.  BWahahHAhAhaaa!!!
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.
417045
Or did you mean when light hits an object, rather than lightning?\n\nIn this case, it really depends on the composition of the object and the wavelength of the light.  Generally, some of the light is absorbed into the object in the form of energy, and some of it is reflected back.  For example, a white light shone onto a red postbox will absorb every colour within the white light except for the red wavelengths which will reflect and be seen, hence it appearing red.
496330
Lightning is cause by an attracting force from the sky to the ground, the clouds and the sky have positive and negative ion while land have negative when the negativeand positive in the clouds combine,it will also attract the negative ions in the ground
93456
Some clouds contain +ve charge & some contain -ve. When both clouds come together in contact, they produce electricity which is the lightning.......
219960
Inside a thunderhead, electrical charges become separated. Warm updrafts sweep positive charges aloft, leaving the bottom of the cloud negatively charged. The attraction between the ground and the negative charges in the bottom of the cloud creates the lightning stroke, a brief current of negative charge that travels from cloud to ground. \n\nThe awesome power of the lightning stroke originates in the thunderstorm cloud where charges somehow become separated. There are several complicated theories that try to explain the actual mechanism of this charge separation, but no one really knows what pulls the charges apart in a thunderstorm cloud. It is believed that somehow water drops in the cloud become negatively charged and, being heavier than the surrounding air, fall to the bottom of the cloud. Meanwhile, the positive ions left behind are swept upward to the top of the cloud by the warm updrafts within the thunderhead. As more and more charges separate, parts of the cloud become so highly charged that the electrical forces tear nearby air molecules apart, making more charged fragments.\n\nSince the ground beneath the cloud has far fewer negative charges on it than the bottom of the cloud, there is an attraction between the ground and the bottom of the cloud. Therefore, any electrons liberated near the cloud are pulled down toward the ground. As these electrons move, they bash into air molecules that are in their way, breaking the molecules up and creating more charged fragments. All the new negative fragments are dragged downward along with the original electrons and we have the makings of an electrical avalanche.\n\nThe avalanche would continue unabated were it not for the heavier and more sluggish positive charges that are left behind. They tend to attract the accelerating army of electrons back toward the cloud. But more electrons are continually being liberated up in the cloud, and they stream to the rescue of the slowing electrons below, reinforcing their race downward. This process of electrons slowing and then being rescued by reinforcements repeats itself over and over again. The initial party of electrons makes its way in jerky 150-foot steps along a sinuous path toward the ground. \n\nThis initial exploratory mission forms what is called a "stepped leader," named for its start-stop motion. The stepped leader takes about 5/1000 of a second, moving at about 240 miles per second, to reach from cloud to ground. When the leader gets near the ground, it may draw a stream of positive charges (called a streamer) up from the ground to meet it. When either the stepped leader reaches the ground or a streamer runs up to join the stepped leader, an electrical connection is completed between the cloud and the ground. The ionized air molecules of the leader conduct electricity quite well, and the path of charged particles acts as a wire, connecting the highly negative cloud and the positive ground. This ionized air becomes the path of the main bolt of lightning.\n\nThe first charges to feel the connection are those near the ground. The light and mobile negative charges quickly accelerate along the wire of ionized air. In their mad rush to the ground the negative charges collide with the air, causing it to glow like a neon sign--only thousands of times brighter and with a bluish-white color. The air near the ground is the first to start glowing, but as the electrons further and further up feel the connection and begin to accelerate, the air further and further up also starts to glow. Even though the negative charges all move from cloud to ground, the bright flash of lightning moves from ground to cloud in a speedy 1/10,000 of a second, moving 61,000 miles per second! The super-heated air expands outward explosively, producing the shock wave we hear as thunder. The bright flash of glowing air is called the return stroke since it moves from ground to cloud, opposite to the moving charges.\n\nThe return stroke discharges a re
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.