Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should Know
Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot Com? M Hey, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast. That is a pretty mellow intron. I'm Josh.
Speaker 1: That's Chuck that makes stuff you should know. That's Jim Morrison, Yes,
Speaker 1: it was. That was the doors Riders on the Storm.
Speaker 1: We have Jim in the studio with us today. Yeah, Hey, Jim,
Speaker 1: did you ever see that gap ad where they show
Speaker 1: Jim Morrison off that and old? No, it was a
Speaker 1: while ago, like probably ten years ago. They did some
Speaker 1: of these sixties icons that passed away early as old people,
Speaker 1: and like, really realistically, it's pretty funny. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: recall that at all. And I've watched a lot of
Speaker 1: TV where I used to I think it was a
Speaker 1: magazine and pronounce oh, I read a lot of magazines.
Speaker 1: Oh Fair used to alert for, used to alert um. So.
Speaker 1: Riders on the Storm was released on the nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: one album Ellie Woman, which we would imagine is available
Speaker 1: at a wide variety of retailers online and at break
Speaker 1: and mortar stores. Yeah. Great song. Yeah, and I'm kind
Speaker 1: of over a lot of the Doors. But I like
Speaker 1: that song, man, I go It's like, how I imagine
Speaker 1: a lot of people are with Zeppelin. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I love Zeppelin. I'm in sixth grade. Um, and then
Speaker 1: it just kind of goes away. But then you get
Speaker 1: older and you're like, wow, they really were great. That
Speaker 1: didn't happen to be with Zeppelin. I got over him
Speaker 1: after sixth grade, you know that. But the Doors, that's
Speaker 1: happened to me. You're back into them again. Well, I
Speaker 1: mean I just constantly am like in a state of
Speaker 1: coming in or out of really appreciating the Doors. But
Speaker 1: for the most part it's solidified as jelled. I love
Speaker 1: the Doors. You know, if you want to keep that intact,
Speaker 1: do yourself a favor and don't ever read any of
Speaker 1: Jim Morrison's poetry books. I have I have. Have you
Speaker 1: ever heard American Prayer? It's like one of the coolest
Speaker 1: things anyone's ever made. I'm not a fan of his poetry. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, his songs were poetry. Writers on the Storm
Speaker 1: is a poem set to music. He's the Lizard King. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can do anything, right, Um, So Chuck, have you
Speaker 1: heard of a guy named Roy Sullivan. Yeah, I remember
Speaker 1: him from being a kid, do you really Yeah? From
Speaker 1: the old Guinness Book Record. Uh huh. I must have
Speaker 1: skipped over his entry because I've read those two. I
Speaker 1: remember when they come out and you'd be like, oh
Speaker 1: my god. It would be like the Scholastic Book Fair,
Speaker 1: which amounted to a couple of like cards with books
Speaker 1: on him out the hallway and some guy who didn't
Speaker 1: recognize standing there selling them. Um. I missed that one,
Speaker 1: but let's tell everybody else. I haven't looked him up
Speaker 1: since then, but if I remember correctly, he had the
Speaker 1: record for being struck right lightning. Yeah, Roy Sullivan. He
Speaker 1: was a ranger park ranger at Shenandoah National Park, okay
Speaker 1: um and he died in Night three. In between nineteen
Speaker 1: forty and nineteen seventy seven, he was struck seven times,
Speaker 1: struck by lightning seven times. And actually there's two of
Speaker 1: his rangers stets and hats that he was wearing while
Speaker 1: he was struck that are in the Guinness World Record.
Speaker 1: I guess museums and they have like burnt holes in them, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: Well you're just smiling. I remember seeing the picture. I
Speaker 1: could picture it in my head. He did not die
Speaker 1: of being struck by lightning. He died what a full
Speaker 1: six years after the last time he was struck. Yeah,
Speaker 1: from like plugging in something in his house and getting shocked.
Speaker 1: He's like stripped on a banana peal Right, um, so
Speaker 1: it's it's I guess I bring this up because we're
Speaker 1: talking about lightning, and you brought up a really excellent
Speaker 1: point that his stets and hat was burned, but this
Speaker 1: guy survived. Even the lightning is many, many, many times
Speaker 1: more powerful than you know, a typical industrial electrocution voltage
Speaker 1: that will just typically kill anybody. Lightning frequently people survive.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, like two thirds of people
Speaker 1: who are struck by lightning survive between two thirds depending
Speaker 1: on who you ask. That's pretty good. So I am
Speaker 1: very excited about this one. Classic. I love natural phenomena.
Speaker 1: I do too. I love earth sciences. I don't know
Speaker 1: I do because I get it. Once you get it,
Speaker 1: it's like geometry, Like once you get geometry, you can't
Speaker 1: get geometry, and all of a sudden, this whole segment
Speaker 1: of of the of nature just becomes clear to you. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you're covering this side of the love because
Speaker 1: I don't have it. You don't know. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think it's neat enough, but I'm not I'm not as
Speaker 1: into the earth sciences at the very least. The pictures
Speaker 1: in this article are really, really awesome. Did you get
Speaker 1: to see some of them? I mean those are pretty,
Speaker 1: very pretty black and whiten. That's still worth looking at
Speaker 1: that all those leaders If you want to go, if
Speaker 1: you want to go to the website how stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com and type and lightning, it will bring up
Speaker 1: a lot of these pictures, but in color. We just
Speaker 1: don't print in color here occasionally, But do you if
Speaker 1: it's something that I think should be in color, I
Speaker 1: like to preserve Cian go Alright, So Chuck, let's talk lightning,
Speaker 1: shall we? Sure you got your statman role? Did you
Speaker 1: read that one thing? The NASA article. There's some stats
Speaker 1: in there that I thought you'd just have a bonanza with.
Speaker 1: I didn't get to it. Oh, buddy, all right, I'll
Speaker 1: play the stat man role there because there there were
Speaker 1: some good stats in there. Do you want me to
Speaker 1: start out with a few, Chuck? I between between this
Speaker 1: one's study of lightning strikes between ninety found that let's
Speaker 1: see nine thousand, eight hundred and eighteen people were struck
Speaker 1: by lightning in that time. Three thousand, two hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty nine died died immediately like it was like, you're
Speaker 1: just struck by lightning. You're over. Um that that's got
Speaker 1: to be like a direct strike, right, all of them
Speaker 1: are direct strikes as far as I understand, Yes, we're
Speaker 1: all direct strikes. Like you can be struck directly like uh,
Speaker 1: ranger Roy and he survived. Um. Men are four times
Speaker 1: likelier than women to be struck by lightning. Um. The
Speaker 1: two thirds of lightning casualties occurred between twelve pm and
Speaker 1: four pm, with the maximum at four pm. Yes. Uh,
Speaker 1: most of the most lightning casualties happened on a Sunday
Speaker 1: or with and Wednesday is the second most frequent day,
Speaker 1: and then July is the peak month. Florida is the
Speaker 1: state that has the most reported lightning strikes for people.
Speaker 1: So if it's four pm on a Wednesday in July
Speaker 1: and you're in Florida, uh, and you're a man holding
Speaker 1: like a golf club, kiss your but combining the good
Speaker 1: Lord would never stop the best game of golf, I think, Uh.
Speaker 1: I remember in a different podcast, we talked about the
Speaker 1: fourth of July actually being the number one day. I
Speaker 1: think I remember that as well, and I think that's
Speaker 1: part and partial to the fact that July is the
Speaker 1: biggest month and there are way more people outside recreating
Speaker 1: your bodies of water on the fourth of July, which
Speaker 1: you know, water of course could help. Yeah. I knew
Speaker 1: this dude who public who actually printed the the alternative
Speaker 1: paper that I helped found, and uh, he would say
Speaker 1: that he was vacating. We're gonna vacate for two weeks
Speaker 1: to me and the family every going down to Disney
Speaker 1: World to vacake. That's pretty funny. The only little cool
Speaker 1: factoids I have are lightning is not necessarily always white
Speaker 1: or white ash yellow and has to do with the background. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that lightning is only an inch y Yeah. I
Speaker 1: saw it was one to two inches in diameter. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's it. And it's hot six degrees or six times
Speaker 1: hotter than the surface of the sun. I saw sixty. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd say that's in the same range. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: six that's not much when you're up that I yeah,
Speaker 1: it'll fry an egg for sure. Um, So you you
Speaker 1: say that there are some cool fact toys associated with lightning.
Speaker 1: I say that lightning as a whole is one cool
Speaker 1: factoid made up of smaller component factoids. Yea. And also
Speaker 1: I'm sure somebody's can be like you guys used the
Speaker 1: word factoid wrong, but we will decimate that person alright. Uh,
Speaker 1: do we need to start with with clouds since we've
Speaker 1: covered that so thoroughlier. I feel like we do because
Speaker 1: with this process of cloud formation it is part and
Speaker 1: parcel with lightning formation. They think we should really point
Speaker 1: out here, man that it's not just this article, it's
Speaker 1: not just how stuff works. That says that scientists aren't
Speaker 1: really sure how all this happens. Um NASA says, so
Speaker 1: the the um, oh, what's the what's the National Laboratory
Speaker 1: begins with the A. Man, well, anyway, one of the
Speaker 1: National Laboratory says though that I write about UM. So basically,
Speaker 1: we don't fully understand how lightning forms, but it's invisible.
Speaker 1: We have some good guesses it occurs within the second
Speaker 1: So it's like, it's not the easiest thing in the
Speaker 1: world to study. No, it's really not, you know about it.
Speaker 1: We can recreate it, which is pretty neat. Okay, so UM.
Speaker 1: But yes, let's start with precipitation in the water cycle. Right,
Speaker 1: You've got um water say here on the Earth's surface. Um,
Speaker 1: when heat is transferred from the environment, remember he always
Speaker 1: goes from something that's warm to something that's cold. That's
Speaker 1: how heat transfer occurs. Something doesn't lose its cold, it
Speaker 1: gains heat, right, that's right. Um. So when that happens,
Speaker 1: water can vaporize and rise up into the atmosphere. That's
Speaker 1: a VA operation. And once it reaches a certain point,
Speaker 1: it's going to lose its heat to the external environment.
Speaker 1: It's gonna turn back into water. It's gonna fall back
Speaker 1: down to the ground. In the foreign precipitation, that's condensation, right,
Speaker 1: So it's either going to get slightly chilly and be rained,
Speaker 1: or it's gonna get really chilly and the snow or
Speaker 1: freezing rain. Right. So, if you get enough water vapor
Speaker 1: going up, and you get enough um condensation starting to
Speaker 1: come down and they start knocking into each other. This
Speaker 1: is what scientists think. Um, they can start knocking electrons
Speaker 1: from one another. The electrons are gonna keep going down,
Speaker 1: They're going to um stay say as a cloud forms,
Speaker 1: they're gonna they're gonna accumulate around the bottom of the
Speaker 1: cloud like a little, a little puffy cloud couch there
Speaker 1: that at the bottom of the clouds all tuck the
Speaker 1: just settle in and nestle down. And then for for
Speaker 1: just for this um example sake, think of positively charged particles,
Speaker 1: the ones that are now missing their electrons um are
Speaker 1: just lighter, so they're gonna accumulate at the top, but
Speaker 1: they're contained in the cloud. Right. So at the top
Speaker 1: of the cloud you have all these positively charged particles,
Speaker 1: at the bottom you have negatively charged particles electrons, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden you have what's called an electric
Speaker 1: field charge separation, which is uh, can do some funky stuff. Well,
Speaker 1: that's how batteries work because chuck, as you'll remember, nature
Speaker 1: loves homeostasis. Yeah, if it's these things are separate, they
Speaker 1: just want to bring them back together exactly. Electrons love
Speaker 1: to flow toward the direction of positively charged particles to
Speaker 1: neutralize it. And that's an electric charge. It's electricity is
Speaker 1: just an electron flow. Okay, So you have a cloud
Speaker 1: that's suddenly like a battery, a big honkin battery. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and um as this as this uh, this charge separation
Speaker 1: becomes more and more charged like that, there's more and
Speaker 1: more positive particles, more and more negative particles. It actually,
Speaker 1: as these negative particles are the electrons are accumulating at
Speaker 1: the bottom of the cloud, they the charge can become
Speaker 1: so great that here on the Earth's surface, dude, it
Speaker 1: actually presses the electrons down into the earth. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: it's hard to imagine this, but it happens when you're
Speaker 1: walking around out there during a thunderstorm, like it is
Speaker 1: being pushed below your feet, leaving the ground positively charged
Speaker 1: and ready to join their little buddies up there in
Speaker 1: the clouds. So you have this layer of electrons and
Speaker 1: now you have to basically two electric fields that can
Speaker 1: either go up within the cloud or it can go
Speaker 1: down to the ground. Yeah, that's a common like that
Speaker 1: was my first question was if these electrons within the
Speaker 1: cloud are separated, why are they going all the way
Speaker 1: down to Earth. Why don't they just you know, have
Speaker 1: lightning inside the cloud. And the answer is, well, that
Speaker 1: happens all the time. That's the most common form of lightning, uh,
Speaker 1: is when the electrons form lightning within it's a little
Speaker 1: fluffy buddy there with It's like cloud to cloud or
Speaker 1: intra cloud lightning. Intra cloud is within the same cloud
Speaker 1: between two clouds, but it's it's still falls in the
Speaker 1: cloud to cloud category. So I think there's two main division,
Speaker 1: cloud to cloud and cloud to ground, and then ground
Speaker 1: to cloud is also ground to cloud still, but it's
Speaker 1: not because it's going between the ground and cloud or
Speaker 1: between a cloud and itself for another cloud. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: like a little cloud on cloud action this one. Okay,
Speaker 1: So you have this um do you have the Earth
Speaker 1: suddenly taking on a positive charge on its surface. You
Speaker 1: have a strong negative charge at the bottom of the um,
Speaker 1: at the bottom of the cloud, and you have nature
Speaker 1: going like what's to do? This is terrible, Like there's
Speaker 1: an electrical potential here and it's making me nervous. Like
Speaker 1: something has to change. So something does change. There's this
Speaker 1: process called the ionization of air, and it's basically turning
Speaker 1: air into what's called plasma by ripping it apart essentially. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like to call it ionic separation. Up coined that term nice.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's what anyone else in science
Speaker 1: calls it, but basically the air around the cloud breaks down, so, uh,
Speaker 1: the electric field is really strong. It separates the ions.
Speaker 1: Now they can move a lot more freely and can
Speaker 1: conduct a lot more electricity. Well, yeah, it takes regular
Speaker 1: air like the stuff we're breathing now, and it separates
Speaker 1: the electrons from the positive ions. Yeah, but not they're
Speaker 1: still within the same area. They're not like completely separate, right,
Speaker 1: It's not like it's not like um opening the curtains
Speaker 1: with two hands, but it is kind of in a
Speaker 1: certain way. With these free electrons, it makes this little
Speaker 1: bit of air that that's been ionized much more conductive,
Speaker 1: like you said, plasma. Okay, so these things this happens
Speaker 1: in little like fifty yard jolts, and they call those
Speaker 1: step leaders. Each little each little rip, each little separation
Speaker 1: of creation. The plasma creates a channel in the air
Speaker 1: that it's very conductive, way more conductive than the surrounding air.
Speaker 1: And it happened a little fifty yard branches. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: they don't have to go straight down. They're basically looking
Speaker 1: they're looking to get to the ground with a path
Speaker 1: of least resistance. So if you see this. Discovery had
Speaker 1: a show did you see that on YouTube? The what
Speaker 1: was it called Raging Planet. Discovery had a show called raging,
Speaker 1: and for the first time they filmed a lightning strike
Speaker 1: in the super slow mow. So when you see this
Speaker 1: like with your naked eye, I mean it all happens
Speaker 1: in a blip and you see a lightning strike. But
Speaker 1: when you see it slowed down, you see the lightning
Speaker 1: working its way down in the little fifty yard bits
Speaker 1: and fracturing off to the left and to the right
Speaker 1: and basically like disappearing again because it didn't find its
Speaker 1: way all the way to the ground. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it would just go like so left and then disappear,
Speaker 1: and then it'll go down, and then it'll go to
Speaker 1: the right and disappear. These channels that that form. Basically
Speaker 1: you have a bunch of the step leaders coming down
Speaker 1: and whichever reaches the ground first winds. But just because
Speaker 1: one reach the ground doesn't mean the other ones automatically disappear.
Speaker 1: So that flow of electrons is going to fill up
Speaker 1: all of the associated um ion channels UM with this
Speaker 1: flow of electrons, right, So um, before that happens, though,
Speaker 1: you've got these step leaders coming down from the clouds,
Speaker 1: you also have something called um positive leaders, right, it's
Speaker 1: positive streamers. I'm sorry. You also have positive streamers coming
Speaker 1: up from the ground. So a positive streamer is a
Speaker 1: or a step leader is a plasma channel forming in
Speaker 1: the direction of the flow of electrons. A positive streamer
Speaker 1: is a plasma channel forming in the opposite direction of
Speaker 1: the flow of electrons. So it's kind of stretching up.
Speaker 1: And it could come from the ground, it could come
Speaker 1: from your head, it could come from a tree or
Speaker 1: that golf club you're holding. And they've captured these in
Speaker 1: photographic form, and it's the same thing. It looks like,
Speaker 1: you know, a little purplish bolt of lightning coming up
Speaker 1: from the ground trying to join up with its buddy
Speaker 1: that's coming down from the sky. Yeah. And like you said,
Speaker 1: I it can come from you. The reason your hair
Speaker 1: lifts up when you're in like an electrical storm, you
Speaker 1: just become a positive streamer, which is not good. It
Speaker 1: sounds nice, it does, and you're glowing a little purplish,
Speaker 1: but you're in big trouble if it connects with you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's the same concept. If you've ever uh shocked
Speaker 1: yourself on a door knob, it's the same thing. The
Speaker 1: closer you're and once you've built up that energy, the
Speaker 1: hand gets closer to the metal, and it leaps out
Speaker 1: from your finger and out from the door knob, and
Speaker 1: you know you've got lightning. Okay, So I mean we're
Speaker 1: drawing this out like I'm about to hyperventilate and I'm
Speaker 1: so excited. Finally, at one point you have a step leader,
Speaker 1: and like you said, it's taken the path of least resistance, right,
Speaker 1: So it's not going to come straight down, largely because
Speaker 1: the shape of the cloud is not equal or is
Speaker 1: not totally flat. Particles in the air can get in
Speaker 1: the way, all kinds of stuff, right, So, um, they're
Speaker 1: coming down in little branches that branch off suddenly nowhere.
Speaker 1: Eventually one comes down and a step leader connects with
Speaker 1: a positive streamer, and all of a sudden, you have
Speaker 1: a full uninterrupted path for these electrons to flow, and
Speaker 1: boy do they flow. What you have is lightning, right.
Speaker 1: You have a sudden current exchange from the cloud down
Speaker 1: to the earth and then from the earth back up
Speaker 1: to the cloud. Because the lightning stroke isn't just from
Speaker 1: the cloud to the ground. It goes down and then
Speaker 1: back up immediately and it's on the back up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: return stroke, Yes, a return stroke. Thank you. On the
Speaker 1: way back up. That's when you see the light literally,
Speaker 1: so lightning is we we don't actually see the electron flow.
Speaker 1: We see the local effects of the electron flow. And um,
Speaker 1: this electron flow produces a tremendous amount of heat energy
Speaker 1: Like what did you say? It was like hotter than
Speaker 1: the surface of the sun, six times hotter. So that's
Speaker 1: that's what you're seeing, right. There is an explosion of heat, right,
Speaker 1: and then that heat actually explodes the air around it,
Speaker 1: and that produces thunder. Yeah. Um, the way I understood
Speaker 1: it was the channel, the ionized plasma channel that's created
Speaker 1: when it goes away, the air collapsing back in on
Speaker 1: itself is what creates that sound, that sound wave? Is
Speaker 1: that right? What I heard was that it's actually exploding
Speaker 1: outward and it's compressing the air, basically exploding the air
Speaker 1: around it. That converts into a shock wave in the
Speaker 1: form of sound that travels outward. That's how I understood it. Well,
Speaker 1: maybe it collapses in and explodes out that's very um,
Speaker 1: that's very democratic of you. And then one more thing
Speaker 1: about thunder, Chuck, get this, there's three segments to the
Speaker 1: sound of thunder. Did you know that I thought Pink
Speaker 1: Floyd said that was like four. Really, I'm just kidding, okay,
Speaker 1: because I remember delicates onund of thunder, but I don't
Speaker 1: remember four parts. Okay. So there's the first part um
Speaker 1: if I mean think about it. Think about when you've
Speaker 1: ever heard thunder. It's like a there's like a few
Speaker 1: sounds to it, right, So the first part is actually
Speaker 1: um caused by the step leaders. Right, that's a tearing sound.
Speaker 1: The second, a cracking sound, is actually caused by the
Speaker 1: positive streamers. And then the third part is the explosion
Speaker 1: of the air blowing up. But what you're hearing those
Speaker 1: first two parts is literally the air ripping open and
Speaker 1: they crazy yep. And if you are out in the country,
Speaker 1: you might be able to hear that as far away
Speaker 1: as fifteen miles. If you're in the city, maybe about
Speaker 1: five miles, you'll be able to hear that thunder. And
Speaker 1: it is true that you can divide by five and
Speaker 1: that is roughly how far away your lightning is from you.
Speaker 1: That's counting from the point the lightning strikes till you
Speaker 1: hear the thunder. Divide that amount of seconds by five.
Speaker 1: Ten seconds, it's two miles away. Is that how does
Speaker 1: that rule of thumb work? I mean, don't storms travel faster? Well, no,
Speaker 1: I think it has nothing to do with how faster traveling.
Speaker 1: It's um the speed of light versus the speed of sound.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, because the speed of light travels at the
Speaker 1: speed of light travel. The speed of sound is far
Speaker 1: far slower, which is why the sound of thunder lags
Speaker 1: the the flash of lightning so much. You just explained
Speaker 1: it to yourself. Thank you. Thanks, So, I think it's
Speaker 1: time for lightning myth number one. Whoa, that's a good
Speaker 1: sound effect. All right, lightning myth number one? Once again,
Speaker 1: The tallest objects in a storm don't always get struck
Speaker 1: by lightning. Uh. It would make sense that lightning, if
Speaker 1: you know, if it's gonna be reaching something that's sticking
Speaker 1: up from the ground in the way of a positive streamer,
Speaker 1: that the tallest thing will always be that thing. And
Speaker 1: that is not the case because you can never really
Speaker 1: predict the path of lightning. No, I strike the ground
Speaker 1: right next to the tallest thing. It might also, yes,
Speaker 1: because the the that path of least resistance, whether it's
Speaker 1: dust or or the curvature of the earth or whatever.
Speaker 1: That's Yeah, you can't predict where it's gonna go. And
Speaker 1: even more than that, once the lightning is struck, it
Speaker 1: may jump. Oh yeah, that is a property of lightning,
Speaker 1: and may jump to something that has an even even
Speaker 1: lesser path of resistance. UM, and that could be you.
Speaker 1: So it could strike a tree that you're standing by
Speaker 1: and you could be like whoo and then yeah, uh
Speaker 1: the way, I guess, way to bust that myth? Thank you. UM.
Speaker 1: I think since you brought that up, we might as
Speaker 1: well talk about, um, the fact that when you see
Speaker 1: lightning and you see it in the clouds and then
Speaker 1: down on the ground and then flickering in the clouds afterward,
Speaker 1: and remnants branching off, that's like maybe forty or fifty
Speaker 1: lightning strikes. You're seeing all at once. It's the whole
Speaker 1: idea that lightning doesn't strike the same place twice. Every
Speaker 1: time it strikes it twice. It strikes it like like
Speaker 1: you said, um, yeah, it's this that that electron flow,
Speaker 1: the back and forth between the ground and the earth
Speaker 1: in this um which neutralizes the electrical charge. It's not
Speaker 1: just one stroke. It's forty or fifty and that's what
Speaker 1: you're more likely to see, even unless you just happen
Speaker 1: to be looking in the field of view with that
Speaker 1: original blast. That's why it's so tough to capture, like
Speaker 1: the Discovery Channel gown Raging Planet. Was he like, sits
Speaker 1: in the room with this little camera and I would
Speaker 1: just let the camera run. I don't know why he
Speaker 1: sat there with his finger on the button. It's like, dude,
Speaker 1: just press record and walk away. But I guess, well,
Speaker 1: I think maybe because it's such a high speed camera.
Speaker 1: Plus also hips thematic doesn't have a video function. But
Speaker 1: he likened it to fishing. He's it's a little like fishing.
Speaker 1: Did he say it like that like a jerk. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was a little bored. Uh, but he got it.
Speaker 1: You know, it was all worth it in in the end.
Speaker 1: That's what counts, Okay, Josh, I think it's time to
Speaker 1: talk about various types of lightning. Yeah, so we talked
Speaker 1: about UM ground two or cloud to ground under an
Speaker 1: umbrella under which ground to cloud falls UM and this
Speaker 1: another way to put it is that's triggered or artificial
Speaker 1: and natural. Natural is when it comes down from the
Speaker 1: cloud to the ground. UM triggered or artificial is when
Speaker 1: some sort of man made structure, say a skyscraper initiates
Speaker 1: this lightning, so it's sending up a positive streamer like
Speaker 1: hey man, come on, let's do this, and the clouds
Speaker 1: like okay, and then it comes down rather than the
Speaker 1: cloud pressing down the electrons I think, on the earth
Speaker 1: surface and then just hitting a cow, because what's more
Speaker 1: natural than lightning striking a cow? That's right. Instant primary
Speaker 1: um types of lightning. Normal lightning, which pretty much is
Speaker 1: what we've been talking about. Sheet lightning is reflected in
Speaker 1: the clouds, and I guess that would paul under intra
Speaker 1: and inter cloud lightning. I would think so. Heat lightning
Speaker 1: is my favorite because that reminds me of growing up,
Speaker 1: going to Florida and swimming at my cousin's house. And
Speaker 1: heat lining is basically lightning this so far away you
Speaker 1: can't hear the thunder right, and it's hot enough. The
Speaker 1: reason they call it heat lightning um is because it's
Speaker 1: hot enough that it's being reflected a tremendous distance by
Speaker 1: this higher temperature atmosphere. It's a comforting lightning, though it
Speaker 1: is in during the summer months. Um Ball lightning, which
Speaker 1: we have talked about before, we were entirely certain back
Speaker 1: then that it actually existed. But I think since we've
Speaker 1: mentioned it that really is it super proven that we've
Speaker 1: figured out that it can exist but no one understands it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the phenomenon where like you will see a ball
Speaker 1: of lightning going through your house. Correct, Yes, I remember
Speaker 1: it was like one of the some listener wrote wrote
Speaker 1: in about it. Yeah, was it like the um spontaneous combustion.
Speaker 1: I don't know that I've ever seen it captured though
Speaker 1: on film Ernie thing. Has it been? Yes, it's been recreated,
Speaker 1: that's I don't think it's been. Someone hasn't caught the
Speaker 1: natural version of it. But yeah, so we've proven it
Speaker 1: can exist. Um. But yeah, it'll burn you and then
Speaker 1: it'll blow up. It's really dangerous, scary, crazy lightning that
Speaker 1: no one gets. Josh, is it time for lightning? Myth
Speaker 1: number two? It sounds like it number two. And this
Speaker 1: is something I learned today. A search protector will not
Speaker 1: save your computer and your television from a lightning strike.
Speaker 1: I thought that's what they were for. Apparently they're only
Speaker 1: for They can only um save your computer or TV
Speaker 1: if it's something that the power company has searched. It's
Speaker 1: a searge from your electrical supply. So what you need
Speaker 1: is something called a what's it called a lightning arrested
Speaker 1: And I've seen that, um, and they're relatively inexpensive, and
Speaker 1: it's filled up with a gas that well, I mean
Speaker 1: it was like thirty bucks. Oh yeah, that's not bad. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I thought you're gonna be like compared to a new Volvo.
Speaker 1: Well that's what I thought. A lightning arrestaurant sounded and
Speaker 1: it was filled with gas that diffuses the charge. I
Speaker 1: thought it'd be like ten bucks. But now even with
Speaker 1: gas prices today, that's right. Um. So we talked about
Speaker 1: types of lightning. We should probably talk about lightning rods
Speaker 1: at some point, like maybe now, So do you know
Speaker 1: Ben Franklin actually invented these things? And I went and
Speaker 1: double checked, like I was like, this sounds like four
Speaker 1: year old textbook stuff. Yeah, but it's true, wouldn't it.
Speaker 1: And I also remembered, oh, wait, like his kite experiment
Speaker 1: he ripped off a couple of frenchmen. I went and
Speaker 1: checked that out, and no, actually he Franklin had conducted
Speaker 1: some sort of experiments and possibly proposed a kite experiment
Speaker 1: and these frenchmen. He published his results in the early
Speaker 1: seventeen fifties and a couple of frenchmen, um like, carried
Speaker 1: him out. So the Frenchman actually did did do this,
Speaker 1: um But Ben Franklin did develop lightning rods as early
Speaker 1: as like the seventeen forties, I believe. But he did
Speaker 1: have a kite key experiment, right he did. Okay, I
Speaker 1: don't know if he it's not certain that he actually
Speaker 1: carried out the gutch the key on the kite experiment
Speaker 1: or just said, you know, this theoretically could work. It's
Speaker 1: a thought experiment. Don't be so stupid to go do this. Well,
Speaker 1: let's call that lightning my number three okay, and here's
Speaker 1: some retroactive lightning for that one in thunder. WHOA all right?
Speaker 1: But he did develop the lightning rod. And basically a
Speaker 1: lightning rod is a metal rod on the roof of
Speaker 1: the building that is attached to a metal wire that
Speaker 1: runs into the ground and it's it's job is to
Speaker 1: either divert that direct lightning strike into the ground and
Speaker 1: diffuse it quickly, or if it's jumping around, to collect
Speaker 1: that and diffuse it so it doesn't cause like super
Speaker 1: lots of damage to the cry for building. Right, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't attract lightning. It says, hey, lightning, I got
Speaker 1: a positive streamer and I'm not gonna resist you at all.
Speaker 1: Just take me and um, the lightning will be like, hey,
Speaker 1: you look pretty good, and um, there you go. But
Speaker 1: it doesn't attract lightning. And I know the article says
Speaker 1: that's nitpicking, but it's really not. There's not a different
Speaker 1: thing offering a good path of least resistance lightning and
Speaker 1: attracting it. Yeah, because the whoever wrote this article, who
Speaker 1: was this, Yeah, I don't, I'd never I didn't recognize
Speaker 1: the name. I think it's an old article basically said
Speaker 1: the lightning is gonna be happening anyway, so it's not
Speaker 1: like it's going to cause lightning to strike there. So
Speaker 1: that made that made a lot of sense. They also
Speaker 1: made a pretty good point that, um, because lightning rods
Speaker 1: conduct electricity so well, that makes them they're not going
Speaker 1: to be singed or burned or whatever it's when you
Speaker 1: resist that, lightning burns you. Right. So like if lightning
Speaker 1: strikes the like the wood of a house, Um, then
Speaker 1: the woods not a very good conductor, which means it's
Speaker 1: going to be a high amount of burning heat damage
Speaker 1: because of resistance produces this heat energy. That makes sense. Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: what else do we have? Do we have another lightning myth? Man,
Speaker 1: they're just coming hard and fast these days. We saved
Speaker 1: them all, right, Lightning myth number four, the Faraday cage. Right, So, um,
Speaker 1: you are in a car and it's a lightning storm.
Speaker 1: You've actually saw shelter in a car. Good move. And
Speaker 1: most people think that's because the tires on the car
Speaker 1: are touching the ground and they're rubber and they're a
Speaker 1: good insulator. Not true. In a lightning storm, rubber actually
Speaker 1: becomes pretty conductive when especially when it's struck by lightning.
Speaker 1: But if your car struck by lightning, you should be
Speaker 1: fairly protected because of this thing called the Faraday cage,
Speaker 1: named after Michael Faraday, the early electrical genius, but I
Speaker 1: think the eighteenth century. Yeah, I think he's the one
Speaker 1: that first described what an electrical field is period. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was just a very smart guy. The fact that
Speaker 1: he didn't die of electrocution is really something that means
Speaker 1: he's super smart. But he realized that if you if
Speaker 1: you put something in a metal cage and apply an
Speaker 1: electrical charge current to the cage. What's inside the cage
Speaker 1: will be fine because electricity passes that along the outside
Speaker 1: of the metal cage, the Faraday cage. Well engineers incorporate
Speaker 1: that into automobile design. So it's a pretty good place
Speaker 1: to seek shelter. You don't want to be laying naked
Speaker 1: on the hood of your car, no, but being inside
Speaker 1: your car would be would be a pretty good place
Speaker 1: to be. Uh. Yeah, Just it has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with your tires stuff. Don't be a dummy. And I
Speaker 1: guess that's our first tip if we're going to give
Speaker 1: some lightning tips. If you are out out and about
Speaker 1: and if you're driving around Kansas. I don't know why,
Speaker 1: I God forbid you would be doing anything like that,
Speaker 1: But stay in your car or get in your car. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you don't have a car. Don't go under a tree.
Speaker 1: Don't go climb the flagpole. Right. Uh. They say to
Speaker 1: put your feet close together and crouch down to the ground. Yes,
Speaker 1: but keep your head as low to the ground as
Speaker 1: you can get it without touching the ground. Do not
Speaker 1: don't let anything but the bottom of your shoes touch
Speaker 1: the ground because when lightning strikes, it sends an electrical
Speaker 1: current across the ground as well. Right, So if your
Speaker 1: head happens to be touching all of a sudden, you
Speaker 1: just had a struck or some sort of neurological damage
Speaker 1: because you just got struck by lightning. Drest at the
Speaker 1: very least. Yeah. Um. But and also if you are
Speaker 1: crouched down, you're providing less of a chance to create
Speaker 1: a positive streamer with your body. So you want to
Speaker 1: find shelter. And if you can't find shelter, you want
Speaker 1: to crouch down, keep your head low and but not
Speaker 1: touching the ground. And also there's a study in Japan,
Speaker 1: Chuck that found that, Um, once you hear thunder, there
Speaker 1: is no safe interval where you're not vulnerable to a
Speaker 1: direct lightning strike. By the time you hear thunder, it's
Speaker 1: already there. It's already too late. You could be struck
Speaker 1: by lightning in any second. So there's no warning sound. Then, no,
Speaker 1: And you also want to get out of pools because
Speaker 1: they are really good at conducting electricity. Yeah, don't stand
Speaker 1: around in water. No, it's not a good idea. Um,
Speaker 1: stay off the telephone. If you still have a telephone
Speaker 1: that's plugged into a cord on a wall. If you
Speaker 1: buy things that have the s C N on TV label.
Speaker 1: Stay off the phone means you're also in Kansas too, interestingly, Um,
Speaker 1: and they say, you know, stay out of the bathtub
Speaker 1: a because it's got water. But one of the other
Speaker 1: reasons if you're in an older house, um, you're plumbing
Speaker 1: pipes are gonna be uh pretty good conductors and attractors
Speaker 1: of that electricity. But the newer house probably PBC right exactly,
Speaker 1: So if you didn't skimp when you redid your house,
Speaker 1: you might have paid for copper. Yeah, it's true. You
Speaker 1: you really want to remember or we should just be like,
Speaker 1: let's just not take a bath for a shower while
Speaker 1: there's a lightning storm. Um. And then I guess is
Speaker 1: that it for the lightning myths too? Um? I think
Speaker 1: so I have uh no more little factoids on my
Speaker 1: sheet either, I've got one. All right, let's hear it.
Speaker 1: Carol Apathy caro onopathy. It's the study of lightnings effects
Speaker 1: on the human body, the study of the pathology of
Speaker 1: light I was mentioned in there. Okay, isn't that cool though,
Speaker 1: like talk about a specialized field like not not the
Speaker 1: effects of electricity on the human body and the effects
Speaker 1: of lightning striking the human body. Did they study people
Speaker 1: like Sullivan? I imagine he was he saw a karenopathist
Speaker 1: or two. I bet you, like he had to have
Speaker 1: become more susceptible, right, Like, is that possible? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think could be a lightning myth that we might
Speaker 1: not dispel at this time. I mean, I would think
Speaker 1: of the guy got I mean, granted, he's a park ranger,
Speaker 1: so he's out there at least that you mentioned his
Speaker 1: stetson having a burn. So despite the fact that like lightning,
Speaker 1: UM is six times hotter than the sun, produces heat
Speaker 1: six times hotter than the sun, heats the air to
Speaker 1: like eighteen thou degrees, causing it to explode, it can
Speaker 1: still hit a human and the only burn wounds typically
Speaker 1: are at the point of entry in the point of exit.
Speaker 1: How does it not kill people all the time? I
Speaker 1: don't know that one thing that they say is possible UM.
Speaker 1: The one possible explanation is that it happens so fast
Speaker 1: that it doesn't have the same amount of time that
Speaker 1: a UM like an industrial electrocution has. Interesting and remember
Speaker 1: the hysterical strength thing. Do you want to tell him
Speaker 1: why people are thrown with electricity. Uh what was it?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's right. It's it's not the actual blast,
Speaker 1: it's the surge of adrenaline is so great that you
Speaker 1: have this superhuman strength and sort of leap back from it,
Speaker 1: and your muscles can track so hard and so fast
Speaker 1: that you throw yourself. Yeah, that's crazy. With lightning, I
Speaker 1: don't think that's true. I think the shock wave can
Speaker 1: actually throw you. You know my grandfather, Uh that eventually
Speaker 1: led to his death. He was electrician. Oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: think I might have told the story. He was at
Speaker 1: the top of a thing and used to test electricity
Speaker 1: with the back of your hand so it doesn't latch on,
Speaker 1: and it popped him out. He hit a live war
Speaker 1: and it knocked him out of a telephone pole and
Speaker 1: he laid on his head. Oh man, and it was
Speaker 1: like bedridden for the rest of his life. And oh man, yeah,
Speaker 1: are you serious? I did not know that. Yeah, wow,
Speaker 1: that was Granddaddy Bryant. I was a little kid. I
Speaker 1: mean he died when I was like six, So all
Speaker 1: I ever knew of him was he was kind of
Speaker 1: this big scary guy in hospital bed who gave you candy.
Speaker 1: Candy and like Buffalo Nichols. Well, okay, that was a
Speaker 1: bummer way to end this one. Yeah. Um, let's see
Speaker 1: you got any other terrible stories now, okay, well, then
Speaker 1: let's go to listener mail. Oh wait, at first I
Speaker 1: didn't even say how stuff works? What is wrong with me?
Speaker 1: Do you want to see some very pretty lightning pictures? Um,
Speaker 1: and read more about lightning? You can just type that in.
Speaker 1: This is like a seminal article for how stuff works.
Speaker 1: It's like bread and butter stuff lightning search bar how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Now it's time for listener mail,
Speaker 1: josh Im. We call this uh email I just received,
Speaker 1: you know, ten minutes ago. Oh okay, hot off the presses.
Speaker 1: Guys and Jerry have been wanting to write for ages,
Speaker 1: and now I actually have things to say. I've been
Speaker 1: listening to the podcast for years, and I probably listen
Speaker 1: to them and never listened to the few in the
Speaker 1: beginning before you two teamed up. Now that's pretty nice. Um,
Speaker 1: I learned so much from them. Your podcast is the
Speaker 1: reason I survived mowing lawns for a summer without my
Speaker 1: brain becoming much from the endless walking back and forth.
Speaker 1: What I really want to write and say, though, is,
Speaker 1: thanks for helping me get into my college. My main
Speaker 1: essay for applying to colleges was about your podcast. I
Speaker 1: entitled it Healthcare to zoot Suits, and I talked all
Speaker 1: about the things I've learned from your podcast, hoping it
Speaker 1: would show the college is um that I was curious,
Speaker 1: well rounded, and had a thirst for knowledge. Apparently worked,
Speaker 1: because I was accepted to several colleges. I will be
Speaker 1: a freshman at st Olaf College next year next fall.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they had a team, saying Olaf,
Speaker 1: they're like the fighting roses from Golden Girls. Really, that's
Speaker 1: where rose from Golden Girls from st Olaf? Really? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't watch Golden Girls. What had I don't know
Speaker 1: it didn't It's not too late so on lifetime every days.
Speaker 1: Far than all right? So Aaron M. From Green Bay, Wisconsin. Uh,
Speaker 1: congratulations for getting into st Olaf College. Jesus, thanks for
Speaker 1: the inspiration and good luck in college is gonna be great.
Speaker 1: It only gets better from from there. In my opinion,
Speaker 1: life A agree, but then it starts to go down.
Speaker 1: But that'll be a while. But I thought that was
Speaker 1: like fifty when that happened. Uh yeah, well we'll see. Okay,
Speaker 1: so congratulations Aaron. Um, if you are someone who has
Speaker 1: used us to further your own agenda, say like getting
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Speaker 1: to hear that kind of story. UM. You can tweet
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