"Gigantic Jets" Blast Electricity Into the Ionosphere 168
New Scientist has an update on the so-called "gigantic jets" first discovered in 2003 — these are lightning bolts that reach from cloud tops upward into the ionosphere, as high as 90 kilometers. (There's a video at the link.) What's new is that researchers from Duke University have managed to measure the electrical discharge from a gigantic jet and confirm that they carry as much energy skyward as ordinary lightning strikes carry to the ground. According to the article, "Gigantic jets are one of a host of new atmospheric phenomena discovered in recent years. Other examples are sprites and blue jets."
The "video at the link" (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sprites (Score:5, Insightful)
Just like so many other scientific discoveries like say, the germ-theory of medicine. In many cases, getting the science right is less difficult than getting the science community and the general public to accept your discovery.
Einstein was right: "Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."
Re:Sprites (Score:3, Insightful)
Eyewitnesses are often wrong about what they see. There are lots of studies on it. Asking for actual evidence rather than anecdotal reports isn't really that much to ask before accepting something as true.
Science doesn't just accept something new as being true just because someone says it's so. That's a good thing.
Re:Sprites (Score:5, Insightful)
"The flow of charged particles" is the very definition of an electric current but mainstream science doesn't regard the solar wind (or any other celestial phenomena) in those terms.
You sure have drunk the Electric Universe kool-aid.
"Mainstream science" recognizes the flow of charged particles from the Sun as an electric current. It's the rest of the Electric Nonsense like the Sun being powered by electricity instead of fusion that it rejects.
But sure, tell us all about how physicists are so stupid they don't know what a current is. If they won't admit that the Sun is powered by electricity then they certainly can't admit that charged particles exist in the solar wind. Oh wait. They do, and this has been established by "mainstream scientists" long before EU "theory" was invented. I hate to break it to you, but they occupy their time by sitting around thinking up new ways to deny the Truth of EU Theory.
And while you're at it, follow it up with an extended rant about how all these idiot scientists are putting down all the brave genius Galileos. That never gets old. It's always good for a Slashdot up-mod, though.
Oh, sure. 'Charge up the "gigantic jets."' (Score:2, Insightful)
If you want your atmospheric phenomena to be taken seriously, don't give them names that belong in an Austin Powers movie.
Re:Sprites (Score:3, Insightful)
He may have been overly harsh, but the Electric Universe idea has been disproven [dumbscientist.com] for many years. It's fair to say that it isn't science, but rather a conspiracy theory promoted by people who don't understand [bautforum.com] physics (or science) very well.
In addition to my critique, Tim Thompson has rebutted the electric sun idea in depth, and W.T. Bridgman has a lengthy critique of the same notion on his site "Dealing with Creationism in Astronomy." Unfortunately, my internet connection is screwed up so I can't provide direct links to these articles at the moment.
Re:Oh, sure. 'Charge up the "gigantic jets."' (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sprites (Score:3, Insightful)
There is a big difference between "we need better evidence" or "we need more evidence" or even "we have no evidence for it" and "it's impossible because we don't know how it would work, so we don't believe it".
Probably written off as UFO sightings (Score:3, Insightful)
Consider though: All of the above-mentioned items are visible unambiguously from miles away. They are all large-scale items. Ball lightning is considered to be small and doesn't act like meteors (falling fireball that you can photograph dozens of on the right night). I would expect that in close proximity, ball lightning would be too bright for the camera (or human eyes) to deal with properly, just ending up washing out the light detection device. At a distance, nobody can really determine whether it's ball lightning or just a proliferation of very short-distance lightning strikes within the cloud, or even just a plane [youtube.com].
Re:Sprites (Score:5, Insightful)
Einstein was right: "Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds...."
That's great. Any idea how we can tell the great minds from the mediocre idiots? There are people telling us that they have been abducted by aliens, can predict the future from tea leaves and that drinking water can cure you (homeopathy) amongst other things. The reason that people do not get believed is not some great scientific conspiracy it is simply that their signal gets lost in the overwhelming noise of idiots making stuff up. Scientists have better things to do than going around checking out every nut job that comes up with something on the off chance that this might be genuine.
It is a shame, because things do get missed and sometimes the short-sightedness of the "establishment" can indeed be a factor (an excellent example is John Harrison [wikipedia.org]). However if you have to blame someone for why people are not believed blame the crystal ball gazers who make it almost impossible to determine those who are genuine.
Re:Sprites (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm finding it difficult to remember where I saw it, but I was struck by reading that "one way a crank can be distinguished from a genius is that a genius knows and appreciates the theories that are generally accepted today, but the crank ignores or derides them".
Re:Okay, so where's the ball lightning? (Score:3, Insightful)
Here is one of the videos from the lab experiment.
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/401413/ball_lightning_created_in_a_laboratory_very_cool_stuff [metacafe.com]
Bouncing bits of burning metal. Some people theorize that this is behind many ball-lightning reports. Notice that it follows a ballistic trajectory -- no gliding, no hovering. It's kind of cool, but anybody who ever welds sees this all the time.
This one seems to be inside a domestic oven. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgMnsdqHwew&feature=related [youtube.com]
And again, if you're inside an environment that's thick with high-intensity standing waves, it's easy to generate cool plasmas. But the volume around a thunderstorm is not like the volume inside a microwave oven -- there's no easily-coupled, sustained source of hundreds of watts of high-frequency energy.
Both of these could be fake of course.
No, I think they're both perfectly legit, and the first one may well be the same mechanism as a lot of reported "ball lightning". But I'm still looking for an explanation for the floating, drifting, long-lifetime balls.
Re:Okay, so where's the ball lightning? (Score:3, Insightful)
um ok. Car crashes are easy to film, they happen around cars.
um ok. "Ball lightning is easy to film, it happens around thunderstorms."
Most of the time though we just film the aftermath, most of the filmed car crashes you've seen have either been in movies or cop car chases.
What's your point? Sure, most car-crash footage is filmed after the fact, not when an accident is actually happening. For that matter, most "footage" has nothing to do with crashes at all. But, as the number of cameras has increased, so has the number of captures of actual accidents as they happen.
Lightning comes in bunches if you didn't know, very easy to film, come on, you can actually smell a lightning storm coming.
Okay, my bad here. I should have said "close-up footage of a direct lightning strike". You may, of course, point out that most footage of lightning is still from far away, but again, more cameras = more captures of actual strikes "in the foreground".
Meteors are visible for a lot longer than a few or fractions of a second. Nothing you mentionned comes even close to the parameters of catching ball lightning on film.
Ball lightning, if it exists at all, is probably much rarer than meteors, or conventional lightning strikes, or maybe even car crashes. But, based on the apparent frequency with which it's reported, it's common enough that someone should be getting it on a cell phone at least.
At least come up with comparable examples. What are those things called, red herrings? Strawmen? or just plain absence of logic?
Somehow, i don't trust the logic of a mind that is clumsy and prone to almost blowing itself up.
Well, if you'd rather not pay attention to an argument from someone who's willing to be wryly up-front about his limitations, that's fine. But groping around for the term you want, and then lurching directly into a textbook ad hominem fallacy, doesn't exactly strengthen your own argument.