Blog 27-Lightning

Lightning will be the topic of this weeks blog. I'm pretty sure that we mentioned it in class and if not, here is my train of thought that proves that this blog is related to class. Circuits-->electricity-->badass things-->ball lightning-->lightning.

The first thing I would like to discuss is clearly ball lightning. Ball lightning has fascinated me since I was a young child. When I first saw video/pictures of it, I thought it was a UFO, but upon further investigation, turns out to be the coolest form of lightning EVER. Unfortunately, ball lightning is very rare, although up to 5% of the population of the United States report having seen ball lightning. However, many people may get this confused with St. Elmo's fire, so the real number is likely much smaller than that. Since ball lightning has never been able to be "conjured" or a sample taken in a scientific setting, there have been many theories and experiments to try and conclusively prove what it is. My favorite hypothesis however, was put forth back in 1999. An Irish scientist, whose name I cannot remember at this time, believed that ball lightning was caled when microscopic primordial black holes came into contact with Earth. I have no idea how lightning and black holes have anything to do with one another, but it is very cool and very amusing nonetheless.