Where is ball lightning. What is ball lightning? Photos and interesting facts. The point of view of official physics

Ball lightning- a rare natural phenomenon that looks like a luminous and floating formation in the air. A unified physical theory of the occurrence and course of this phenomenon has not yet been presented, there are also scientific theories that reduce the phenomenon to hallucinations. There are many hypotheses that explain the phenomenon, but none of them has received absolute recognition in the academic environment. Under laboratory conditions, similar, but short-term, phenomena were obtained by several different ways, so that the question of the nature of ball lightning remains open. As of the beginning of the 21st century, not a single experimental installation has been created on which this natural phenomenon would be artificially reproduced in accordance with the descriptions of eyewitnesses of observation of ball lightning.

It is widely believed that ball lightning- a phenomenon of electrical origin, of natural nature, that is, it is a special type of lightning that exists for a long time and has the shape of a ball that can move along an unpredictable, sometimes surprising trajectory for eyewitnesses.

Traditionally, the reliability of many ball lightning eyewitness accounts remains in doubt, including:

the very fact of observing at least some phenomenon;
the fact of observing ball lightning, and not some other phenomenon;
separate details of the phenomenon, given in the testimony of an eyewitness.

Doubts about the reliability of many testimonies complicate the study of the phenomenon, and also create grounds for the emergence of various speculative sensational materials allegedly related to this phenomenon.

According to eyewitnesses, ball lightning usually appears in thunderstorm, stormy weather; often (but not necessarily) along with regular lightning. Most often, it seems to “leave” the conductor or is generated by ordinary lightning, sometimes descends from the clouds, in rare cases it suddenly appears in the air or, as eyewitnesses report, it can come out of some object (tree, pillar).

Due to the fact that the appearance of ball lightning as a natural phenomenon is rare, and attempts to artificially reproduce it on the scale of a natural phenomenon fail, the main material for studying ball lightning is the evidence of casual eyewitnesses unprepared for observations. In some cases, contemporary eyewitnesses took photographs and/or video footage of the phenomenon. But at the same time, the low quality of these materials does not allow them to be used for scientific purposes.

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Phenomenon and science

Until 2010, the question of the existence of ball lightning was fundamentally refutable. As a result of this, and also under the pressure of the presence of many eyewitnesses, it was impossible to deny the existence of ball lightning in scientific publications.

Thus, in the preface to the Bulletin of the Commission of the Russian Academy of Sciences for Combating Pseudoscience “In Defense of Science”, No. 5, 2009, the following formulas were used:

Of course, there is still a lot of obscurity in ball lightning: it does not want to fly into the laboratories of scientists equipped with appropriate devices.

The theory of the origin of ball lightning, which meets the Popper criterion, was developed in 2010 by Austrian scientists Joseph Peer and Alexander Kendl from the University of Innsbruck. They published in the scientific journal Physics Letters A the assumption that ball lightning evidence can be understood as a manifestation of phosphenes - visual sensations without light affecting the eye, that is, ball lightning are hallucinations.

Their calculations show that the magnetic fields of certain lightnings with repeated discharges induce electric fields in the neurons of the visual cortex, which appear to a person as ball lightning. Phosphenes can occur in people up to 100 meters away from a lightning strike.

This instrumental observation probably means that the phosphene hypothesis is not exhaustive.

Observation history

A great contribution to the work on the observation and description of ball lightning was made by the Soviet scientist I. P. Stakhanov, who, together with S. L. Lopatnikov, published an article on ball lightning in the journal Knowledge is Power in the 1970s. At the end of this article, he attached a questionnaire and asked eyewitnesses to send him their detailed recollections of this phenomenon. As a result, he accumulated extensive statistics - more than a thousand cases, which allowed him to generalize some of the properties of ball lightning and offer his theoretical model of ball lightning.

Historical evidence

Thunderstorm at Widecombe-in-the-Moore

On October 21, 1638, lightning appeared during a thunderstorm in the church of the village of Widecombe-in-the-Moor, Devon, England. Eyewitnesses said that a huge fireball about two and a half meters across flew into the church. He knocked out several large stones and wooden beams from the walls of the church. Then the ball allegedly broke the benches, broke many windows and filled the room with thick dark smoke with the smell of sulfur. Then it split in half; the first ball flew out, breaking another window, the second disappeared somewhere inside the church. As a result, 4 people died and 60 were injured. The phenomenon was explained by the "coming of the devil", or "hell fire" and blamed for everything on two people who dared to play cards during the sermon.

Incident aboard the Montag

The impressive size of lightning is reported from the words of the ship's doctor Gregory in 1749. Admiral Chambers, aboard the Montag, went up on deck around noon to measure the ship's coordinates. He spotted a fairly large blue fireball about three miles away. The order was immediately given to lower the topsails, but the ball was moving very fast, and before it could change course, it flew up almost vertically and, being no more than forty or fifty yards above the rig, disappeared with a powerful explosion, which is described as a simultaneous volley of a thousand guns. The top of the mainmast was destroyed. Five people were knocked down, one of them received multiple bruises. The ball left behind a strong smell of sulfur; before the explosion, its value reached the size of a millstone.

The Death of Georg Richmann The Case of the Warren Hastings

A British publication reported that in 1809 the Warren Hastings was "attacked by three balls of fire" during a storm. The crew saw one of them go down and kill a man on deck. The one who decided to take the body was hit by the second ball; he was knocked down and had minor burns on his body. The third ball killed another person. The crew noted that after the incident, there was a disgusting smell of sulfur above the deck.

Description in the book by Wilfried de Fontvieille "Lightning and Glow"

A French author's book reports about 150 ball lightning encounters: “Apparently, ball lightning is strongly attracted to metal objects, so they often end up near balcony railings, water and gas pipes. They do not have a specific color, their shade may be different, for example, in Köthen in the Duchy of Anhalt, lightning was green. M. Colon, Vice-President of the Geological Society of Paris, saw the ball slowly descend along the bark of a tree. Touching the surface of the ground, he jumped and disappeared without an explosion. On September 10, 1845, in the Correze Valley, lightning flew into the kitchen of one of the houses in the village of Salagnac. The ball rolled through the entire room without causing any damage to the people there. When he reached the barn bordering the kitchen, he suddenly exploded and killed a pig accidentally locked there. The animal was not familiar with the wonders of thunder and lightning, so it dared to smell in the most obscene and inappropriate way. Lightning does not move very fast: some have even seen them stop, but this does not make the balls less destructive. Lightning that flew into the church of the city of Stralsund, during the explosion, threw out several small balls, which also exploded like artillery shells.

Remarque in the literature of 1864

In the 1864 edition of A Guide to the Scientific Knowledge of Things Familiar, Ebenezer Cobham Brewer discusses "ball lightning". In his description, lightning appears as a slowly moving fireball of explosive gas, which sometimes descends to the earth and moves along its surface. It is also noted that the balls can split into smaller balls and explode "like a cannon shot."

Other evidence

In a series of children's books by writer Laura Ingalls Wilder, there is a reference to ball lightning. Although the stories in the books are considered fictional, the author insists that they actually happened in her life. According to this description, during a winter blizzard, three balls appeared near the cast-iron stove. They originated from chimney, then rolled across the floor and disappeared. At the same time, Caroline Ingalls, the mother of the writer, was chasing them with a broom.
April 30, 1877 ball lightning flew into the central temple of Amritsar (India) - Harmandir Sahib. The phenomenon was observed by several people until the ball left the room through the front door. This incident is depicted on the Darshani Deodi gate.
On November 22, 1894, in the city of Golden, Colorado (USA), ball lightning appeared, which lasted an unexpectedly long time. As the Golden Globe newspaper reported: “On Monday night, a beautiful and strange phenomenon could be observed in the city. A strong wind arose and the air seemed to be filled with electricity. Those who happened to be near the school that night could watch the fireballs fly one after another for half an hour. This building houses electric and dynamo machines from perhaps the finest factory in the state. Probably, last Monday a delegation arrived to the prisoners of the dynamos directly from the clouds. Definitely, this visit was a success, as well as the frantic game that they started together.
In July 1907, on the west coast of Australia, a lighthouse at Cape Naturalist was struck by ball lightning. Lighthouse keeper Patrick Baird lost consciousness, and the phenomenon was described by his daughter Ethel.

Contemporary evidence

Submariners repeatedly and consistently reported small fireballs occurring in the closed space of a submarine. They appeared when the battery was turned on, turned off, or incorrectly turned on, or in the event of a disconnection or incorrect connection of highly inductive electric motors. Attempts to reproduce the phenomenon using the submarine's spare battery ended in failure and explosion.

On August 6, 1944, in the Swedish city of Uppsala, ball lightning passed through a closed window, leaving behind a round hole about 5 cm in diameter. The phenomenon was not only observed by local residents, but the lightning tracking system of Uppsala University, which is located in the department of electricity and lightning, also worked.
In 1954, the physicist Tar Domokos (Domokos Tar) observed lightning in a severe thunderstorm. He described what he saw in sufficient detail: “It happened on a warm summer day on the island of Margaret on the Danube. It was somewhere between 25-27 degrees Celsius, the sky was quickly covered with clouds, and a strong thunderstorm was approaching. Thunder was heard in the distance. The wind picked up, it started to rain. The storm front was moving very fast. There was nothing nearby where one could hide, there was only a lone bush nearby (about 2 m high), which was bent by the wind to the ground. Humidity rose to almost 100% due to rain. Suddenly, right in front of me (about 50 meters away), lightning struck the ground (at a distance of 2.5 meters from the bush). I have never heard such a roar in my life. It was a very bright channel 25-30 cm in diameter, it was exactly perpendicular to the surface of the earth. It was dark for about two seconds, and then a beautiful ball with a diameter of 30-40 cm appeared at a height of 1.2 m. bush. The ball sparkled like a small sun and rotated counterclockwise. The axis of rotation was parallel to the ground and perpendicular to the line "bush - impact site - ball". The orb also had one or two reddish whorls or tails that went out to the right back (to the north), but not as bright as the orb itself. They poured into the ball after a fraction of a second (~0.3 s). The ball itself slowly and at a constant speed moved horizontally along the same line from the bush. Its colors were crisp, and its brightness was constant across its entire surface. There was no more rotation, the movement took place at a constant height and at a constant speed. I didn't notice any size changes. About three more seconds passed - the ball instantly disappeared, and completely silently, although due to the noise of the thunderstorm I might not have heard it. The author himself assumes that the temperature difference inside and outside the channel of ordinary lightning with the help of a gust of wind formed a kind of vortex ring, from which the observed ball lightning then formed.
On August 17, 1978, a group of five Soviet climbers (Kavunenko, Bashkirov, Zybin, Koprov, Korovkin) descended from the top of Mount Trapezia and stopped for the night at an altitude of 3900 meters. According to V. Kavunenko, master of sports of international class in mountaineering, ball lightning of bright yellow color the size of a tennis ball appeared in a closed tent, which for a long time randomly moved from body to body, making a crackling sound. One of the athletes, Oleg Korovkin, died on the spot from lightning contact with the solar plexus area, the rest were able to call for help and were taken to the Pyatigorsk city hospital with a large number of burns of the 4th degree of unexplained origin. The case was described by Valentin Akkuratov in the article "Meeting with a fireball" in the January 1982 issue of the Tekhnika-Molodezhi magazine.
In 2008, ball lightning flew through the window of a trolleybus in Kazan. The conductor, using a validator, threw it to the end of the cabin, where there were no passengers, and a few seconds later an explosion occurred. There were 20 people in the cabin, no one was hurt. The trolleybus was out of order, the validator got hot and turned white, but remained in working order.
On July 10, 2011, in the Czech city of Liberec, ball lightning appeared in the control building of the city's emergency services. A ball with a two-meter tail jumped to the ceiling directly from the window, fell to the floor, bounced again to the ceiling, flew 2-3 meters, and then fell to the floor and disappeared. This frightened the employees, who smelled burnt wiring and believed that a fire had started. All computers hung (but did not break), communication equipment was out of order for the night until it was fixed. In addition, one monitor was destroyed.
On August 4, 2012, ball lightning frightened a villager in the Pruzhany district of the Brest region. According to the newspaper "Rayonnyya Budni", ball lightning flew into the house during a thunderstorm. Moreover, as the hostess of the house, Nadezhda Vladimirovna Ostapuk, told the publication, the windows and doors in the house were closed and the woman could not understand how the fireball entered the room. Luckily, the woman figured out that she shouldn't make any sudden movements, and just stayed where she was, watching the lightning. Ball lightning flew over her head and discharged into the electrical wiring on the wall. As a result of an unusual natural phenomenon, no one was injured, only the interior decoration of the room was damaged, the newspaper reports.

Artificial reproduction of the phenomenon

Overview of artificial reproduction approaches

Since there is a clear connection in the appearance of ball lightning with other manifestations of atmospheric electricity (for example, ordinary lightning), most of the experiments were carried out according to the following scheme: a gas discharge was created (the glow of gas discharges is widely known), and then conditions were sought when the luminous discharge could exist as a spherical body. But researchers have only short-term gas discharges of a spherical shape, living for a maximum of a few seconds, which does not correspond to eyewitness accounts of natural ball lightning. A. M. Khazen put forward the idea of a ball lightning generator, consisting of a microwave transmitter antenna, a long conductor and a high voltage pulse generator.

List of statements

Several claims have been made about the production of ball lightning in laboratories, but in general there has been a skeptical attitude towards these statements in the academic environment. The question remains: “Are the phenomena observed in laboratory conditions identical? natural phenomenon ball lightning"?

Attempts at a theoretical explanation

In our age, when physicists know what happened in the first seconds of the existence of the Universe, and what is happening in black holes that have not yet been discovered, we still have to admit with surprise that the main elements of antiquity - air and water - still remain a mystery to us.

Most theories agree that the reason for the formation of any ball lightning is associated with the passage of gases through a region with a large difference in electrical potentials, which causes the ionization of these gases and their compression into a ball [ ] .

Experimental verification of existing theories is difficult. Even if we count only the assumptions published in serious scientific journals, the number of theoretical models that describe the phenomenon and answer these questions with varying degrees of success is quite large.

Classification of theories

On the basis of the location of the energy source that supports the existence of ball lightning, theories can be divided into two classes:
- assuming an external source;
- suggesting that the source is inside ball lightning.

Review of existing theories

The hypothesis of Kurdyumov S. P. about the existence of localized dissipative structures in non-equilibrium media: “... The simplest manifestations of localization processes in nonlinear media are vortices… They have certain sizes, lifetime, can spontaneously arise when flowing around bodies, appear and disappear in liquids and gases in intermittency regimes close to the turbulent state. Solitons arising in various nonlinear media can serve as an example. Even more difficult (from the point of view of certain mathematical approaches) are dissipative structures… in certain parts of the medium, localization of processes in the form of solitons, autowaves, dissipative structures can take place… it is important to single out… localization of processes on the medium in the form of structures having a certain shape, architecture.”
Hypothesis of Kapitsa P. L . about the resonant nature of ball lightning in an external field: a standing electromagnetic wave arises between the clouds and the earth, and when it reaches a critical amplitude, an air breakdown occurs in some place (most often, closer to the earth), a gas discharge is formed. In this case, ball lightning turns out to be "strung" on the lines of force of a standing wave and will move along conductive surfaces. The standing wave is then responsible for the energy supply of ball lightning. ( “... With a sufficient voltage of the electric field, conditions should arise for an electrodeless breakdown, which, by means of ionization resonant absorption by the plasma, should develop into a luminous ball with a diameter equal to about a quarter of the wavelength”).
Hypothesis of V. G. Shironosov: a self-consistent resonant model of ball lightning is proposed based on the works and hypotheses of: S. P. Kurdyumova (on the existence of localized dissipative structures in non-equilibrium media); Kapitsa P. L. (on the resonant nature of ball lightning in an external field). The resonant model of ball lightning by P. L. Kapitza, having most logically explained a lot, did not explain the main thing - the reasons for the emergence and long-term existence of intense short-wave electromagnetic oscillations during a thunderstorm. According to the theory put forward, inside ball lightning, in addition to the short-wave electromagnetic oscillations proposed by P. L. Kapitza, there are additional significant magnetic fields of tens of megaersteds. In the first approximation, ball lightning can be considered as a self-stable plasma - "holding" itself in its own resonant variables and constant magnetic fields. The resonant self-consistent model of ball lightning made it possible to explain not only its many mysteries and features qualitatively and quantitatively, but also, in particular, to outline the way for experimental production of ball lightning and similar self-sustaining plasma resonant formations controlled by electromagnetic fields. It is curious to note that the temperature of such a self-contained plasma in the understanding of chaotic motion will be “close” to zero due to the strictly ordered synchronous motion of charged particles. Accordingly, the lifetime of such ball lightning (resonant system) is large and proportional to its quality factor.
A fundamentally different hypothesis is Smirnov B.M., who has been dealing with the problem of ball lightning for many years. In his theory, the core of ball lightning is an interwoven honeycomb structure, a kind of airgel, which provides a strong framework with low weight. Only the carcass filaments are plasma filaments, and not solid body. And the energy reserve of ball lightning is entirely hidden in the huge surface energy of such a microporous structure. Thermodynamic calculations based on this model, in principle, do not contradict the observed data.
Another theory explains the entire set of observed phenomena by thermochemical effects occurring in saturated water vapor in the presence of a strong electric field. The energy of ball lightning here is determined by the heat of chemical reactions involving water molecules and their ions. The author of the theory is sure that it gives a clear answer to the riddle of ball lightning.
The following theory assumes that ball lightning is heavy positive and negative air ions formed during an ordinary lightning strike, the recombination of which is prevented by their hydrolysis. Under the influence of electric forces, they gather into a ball and can coexist for quite a long time until their water “fur coat” collapses. This also explains the fact that the different color of ball lightning and its direct dependence on the time of existence of the ball lightning itself - the rate of destruction of water "fur coats" and the beginning of the process of avalanche recombination.
According to another theory, ball lightning is a Rydberg substance [ ] . L.Holmlid group. is engaged in the preparation of the Rydberg substance in the laboratory so far not for the purpose of producing ball lightning, but mainly for the purpose of obtaining powerful electron and ion streams, using the fact that the work function of the Rydberg substance is very small, a few tenths of an electron volt. The assumption that ball lightning is a Rydberg substance describes much more of its observable properties, from the ability to occur at different conditions, composed of different atoms, and to the ability to pass through walls and restore a spherical shape. They also try to explain the plasmoids obtained in liquid nitrogen by the condensate of the Rydberg substance. A ball lightning model based on spatial Langmuir solitons in a plasma with diatomic ions was used.
An unexpected approach to explaining the nature of ball lightning has been proposed over the past six years by Torchigin V.P., according to which ball lightning is an incoherent optical spatial soliton, the curvature of which is different from zero. Translated into more available language ball lightning is a thin layer of highly compressed air in which ordinary intense white light circulates in all possible directions. This light, due to the electrostrictive pressure it creates, provides air compression. In turn, the compressed air acts as a light guide that prevents light from radiating into free space [ ] . It can be said that ball lightning is a self-limiting intense light or a light bubble that has arisen from ordinary linear lightning [ ] . Like an ordinary light beam, a light bubble in the earth's atmosphere moves in the direction of the refractive index of the air in which it is located.
As regards attempts to reproduce ball lightning in the laboratory, Nauer in 1953 and 1956 reported on the production of luminous objects, observable properties which completely coincide with the properties of light bubbles. The properties of light bubbles can be obtained theoretically on the basis of generally accepted physical laws. The objects observed by Nauer are not subject to the action of electric and magnetic fields, emit light from their surface, they can bypass obstacles and remain intact after penetrating through small holes. Nauer suggested that the nature of these objects had nothing to do with electricity. The relatively short lifetime of such objects (several seconds) is explained by the low stored energy due to the low power of the electric discharge used. With an increase in the stored energy, the degree of compression of the air in the shell of the light bubble increases, which leads to an improvement in the ability of the fiber to limit the light circulating in it and to a corresponding increase in the lifetime of the light bubble. Nauer's works represent a unique [ ] the case when the experimental confirmation of the theory appeared 50 years before the theory itself.
In the works of M. Dvornikov, a model of ball lightning was developed, based on spherically symmetric nonlinear oscillations of charged particles in plasma. These oscillations have been considered within the framework of classical and quantum mechanics. It is found that the most intense plasma oscillations occur in the central regions of ball lightning. It has been suggested that bound states of radially oscillating charged particles with oppositely oriented spins can arise in ball lightning - an analog of Cooper pairs, which in turn can lead to the appearance of a superconducting phase inside ball lightning. Previously, the idea of superconductivity in ball lightning was expressed in papers. Also, within the framework of the proposed model, the possibility of the occurrence of ball lightning with a compound core was investigated.
Austrian scientists from the University of Innsbruck Josef Peer and Alexander Kendl in their work published in a scientific journal Physics Letter A, described the effect of magnetic fields arising from a lightning discharge on the human brain. According to them, so-called phosphenes appear in the visual centers of the cerebral cortex - visual images that appear in a person when strong electromagnetic fields are exposed to the brain or optic nerve. Scientists compare this effect with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), when magnetic impulses are sent to the cerebral cortex, provoking the appearance of phosphenes. TMS is often used as a diagnostic procedure in an outpatient setting. Thus, physicists believe, when it seems to a person that ball lightning is in front of him, in fact, these are phosphenes. “When someone is within a few hundred meters of a lightning strike, a white spot can appear in the eyes for a few seconds,” Kendl explains. “This happens under the influence of an electromagnetic impulse on the cerebral cortex.” True, this theory does not explain how fireballs can be captured on video.
The Russian mathematician M. I. Zelikin proposed an explanation for the phenomenon of ball lightning, based on the as yet unconfirmed hypothesis of plasma superconductivity. [ ]
In the work of A. M. Khazen, a model of ball lightning was developed as a plasma clot with a non-uniform permittivity that is stationary in the electric field of a thunderstorm. The electric potential is described by an equation like the Schrödinger equation.

In fiction

Notes

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Ceng, Jianyong; Yuan, Ping; Xue, Simin (17 January 2014). "Observation of the Optical and Spectral Characteristics of Ball Lightning". Physical Review Letters (American Physical Society) 112 (035001)
The pressure of pseudoscience does weaken // Commission to combat with pseudoscience and falsification scientific research
Physics Letters A, Volume 347, Issue 29, pp. 2932-2935 (2010). Erratum and addendum: Physics Letters A, Volume 347, Issue 47, pp. 4797-4799 (2010)
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Igor Ivanov. For the first time received spectrum glow ball lightning (indefinite) . Elementy.ru (January 20, 2014). Date of access 21 January 2014. Archived from the original on 21 January 2014.
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Klotblixten - naturens olösta gåta (indefinite) . www.hvi.uu.se. Retrieved 18 August 2016.
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Valentin Akkuratov Encounter with a fireball
A conductor from Kazan saved the passengers of a trolleybus that was hit by an ORT fireball
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What is hidden behind the mystical appearance of a mysterious bundle of energy that medieval Europeans were so afraid of?

There is an opinion that these are messengers of extraterrestrial civilizations or, in general, beings endowed with intelligence. But is it really so?

Let's deal with this unusually interesting phenomenon.

What is ball lightning

Ball lightning is a rare natural phenomenon that looks like it glows and floats into a formation. It's a glowing ball that appears out of nowhere and disappears into thin air. Its diameter varies from 5 to 25 cm. Briefly.

Typically, ball lightning can be seen just before, after, or during a thunderstorm. The duration of the phenomenon itself ranges from a few seconds to a couple of minutes.

The lifespan of ball lightning tends to increase with its size and decrease with its brightness. It is believed that fireballs, which have a distinct orange or blue color, last longer than ordinary ones.

Ball lightning typically travels parallel to the ground, but can also move in vertical bursts.

It usually descends from the clouds, but it can also suddenly materialize outdoors or indoors; it can enter a room through a closed or open window, thin non-metallic walls, or a chimney.

Ball Lightning Mystery

In the first half of the 19th century, the French physicist, astronomer and naturalist Francois Arago, perhaps the first in civilization, collected and systematized all the evidence of the appearance of ball lightning known at that time. In his book, more than 30 cases of observation of ball lightning were described.

The suggestion put forward by some scientists that ball lightning is a plasma ball was rejected, since "a hot ball of plasma would have to rise up like a balloon", and this is exactly what ball lightning does not do.

Some physicists have suggested that ball lightning appears due to electrical discharges. For example, a Russian physicist believed that ball lightning is a discharge that occurs without electrodes and is caused by microwaves of unknown origin that exist between clouds and the earth.

According to another theory, outdoor fireballs are caused by an atmospheric maser (microwave quantum generator).

Two scientists from - John Abramson and James Dinnis - believe that fireballs consist of ragged balls of burning silicon, created by ordinary lightning striking the ground.

According to their theory, when lightning strikes the ground, it breaks down into tiny particles of silicon and its constituents, oxygen and carbon.

These charged particles join into chains that continue to form already fibrous networks. They gather together in a luminous "ragged" ball, which is picked up by air currents.

There it floats like ball lightning or a burning ball of silicon, radiating the energy it has absorbed from the lightning in the form of heat and light until it burns out.

In the scientific community, there are many hypotheses about the origin of ball lightning, which make no sense to talk about, since all of them are only assumptions.

Ball lightning of Nikola Tesla

The first experiments to study this mysterious phenomenon can be considered works at the end of the 19th century. In his brief note, he reports that, under certain conditions, igniting a gas discharge, he, after turning off the voltage, observed a spherical luminous discharge with a diameter of 2-6 cm.

However, Tesla (see) did not report the details of his experience, so it was difficult to reproduce this installation.

Eyewitnesses claimed that Tesla could make fireballs for several minutes, while he took them in his hands, put them in a box, covered them with a lid and took them out again.

Historical evidence

Many physicists of the 19th century, including Kelvin and Faraday, during their lifetimes were inclined to believe that ball lightning is either optical illusion, or a phenomenon of a completely different, non-electric nature.

However, the number of cases, the detail of the description of the phenomenon and the reliability of the evidence increased, which attracted the attention of many scientists, including well-known physicists.

Here are some reliable historical evidence of the observation of ball lightning.

Death of Georg Richmann

In 1753, Georg Richmann, a full member of the Academy of Sciences, died from a ball lightning strike. He invented a device for studying atmospheric electricity, so when he heard at the next meeting that it was coming, he urgently went home with an engraver to capture the phenomenon.

During the experiment, a bluish-orange ball flew out of the device and hit the scientist right in the forehead. There was a deafening roar, similar to the shot of a gun. Richman dropped dead.

The Warren Hastings incident

A British publication reported that in 1809 the Warren Hastings was "attacked by three balls of fire" during a storm. The crew saw one of them go down and kill a man on deck.

The one who decided to take the body was hit by the second ball; he was knocked down and had minor burns on his body. The third ball killed another person.

The crew noted that after the incident, there was a disgusting smell of sulfur above the deck.

Contemporary evidence

During World War II, pilots reported strange phenomena that could be interpreted as ball lightning. They saw small balls moving along an unusual trajectory.
On August 6, 1944, in the Swedish city of Uppsala, ball lightning passed through a closed window, leaving behind a round hole about 5 cm in diameter. The phenomenon was observed not only by local residents. The fact is that the system for tracking lightning discharges at Uppsala University, which is located in the department for the study of electricity and lightning, has worked.
In 2008, ball lightning flew through the window of a trolleybus in Kazan. The conductor, with the help of a validator, threw her to the end of the cabin, where there were no passengers. A few seconds later there was an explosion. There were 20 people in the cabin, but no one was hurt. The trolleybus was out of order, the validator got hot and turned white, but remained in working order.

Since ancient times, ball lightning has been observed by thousands of people in different parts of the world. Most modern physicists do not doubt the fact that ball lightning really exists.

However, there is still no single academic opinion about what ball lightning is and what causes this natural phenomenon.

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Ball lightning - an unusual natural phenomenon, which is a luminous clot electric current. In nature, it is almost impossible to meet it, even some scientists argue that it is impossible.

How ball lightning occurs

Most experts say that ball lightning appears after a normal lightning strike. They can be as large as a regular peach and reach the size of a soccer ball. The color of ball lightning can be orange, yellow, red or bright white. With each approach of the ball, you can hear a terrible buzzing and hissing.

The lifetime of ball lightning can reach several minutes. There is one theory that claims that ball lightning is a copy of a small thundercloud. Perhaps the smallest dust particles constantly exist in the air, and lightning, in turn, gives an electric charge to the dust particles in a particular area of the air. Some dust particles are negatively charged, while others are positively charged. Then, millions of small lightning bolts connect oppositely charged dust particles, and then a sparkling round ball is created in the air.

Ball lightning is a fairly rare natural phenomenon.
On this moment It is impossible to say exactly how ball lightning occurs. There are hundreds of theories that explain its appearance, but none of them have been proven.
In 1638, ball lightning was first documented. In those days, she flew into the church during a thunderstorm.
Ball lightning can easily melt window glass.
Most often, ball lightning enters an apartment through doors and windows.
The speed of movement of this natural phenomenon can reach up to 10 meters per second.
It is assumed that the temperature in the center of the ball is thousands of degrees.

Where does ball lightning come from and what is it? Scientists have been asking themselves this question for many decades in a row, and so far there is no clear answer. A stable plasma ball resulting from a powerful high-frequency discharge. Another hypothesis is antimatter micrometeorites.
In total, there are more than 400 unproven hypotheses.

…A barrier with a spherical surface can appear between matter and antimatter. Powerful gamma radiation will inflate this ball from the inside, and prevent the penetration of matter to the alien antimatter, and then we will see a glowing pulsating ball that will soar above the Earth. This view appears to have been confirmed. Two British scientists methodically inspected the sky with gamma-ray detectors. And registered four times an abnormally high level of gamma radiation in the expected energy region.

The first documented case of the appearance of ball lightning took place in 1638 in England, in one of the churches in Devon. As a result of the atrocities of a huge fireball, 4 people died, about 60 were injured. Subsequently, new reports of such phenomena periodically appeared, but there were few of them, since eyewitnesses considered ball lightning an illusion or an optical illusion.

The first generalization of cases of a unique natural phenomenon was made by the Frenchman F. Arago in the middle of the 19th century; about 30 testimonies were collected in his statistics. The growing number of such meetings made it possible to obtain, based on the descriptions of eyewitnesses, some of the characteristics inherent in the heavenly guest. Ball lightning is an electrical phenomenon, a fireball moving in the air in an unpredictable direction, luminous, but not radiating heat. This is where the general properties end and the particulars characteristic of each of the cases begin. This is due to the fact that the nature of ball lightning has not been fully understood, since so far it has not been possible to study this phenomenon in the laboratory or to recreate a model for study. In some cases, the diameter of the fireball was several centimeters, sometimes reaching half a meter.

For several hundred years, ball lightning has been the object of study by many scientists, including N. Tesla, G. I. Babat, P. L. Kapitsa, B. Smirnov, I. P. Stakhanov and others. Scientists have put forward various theories of the occurrence of ball lightning, of which there are over 200. According to one of the versions, an electromagnetic wave formed between the earth and clouds reaches a critical amplitude at a certain moment and forms a spherical gas discharge. Another version is that ball lightning consists of high-density plasma and contains its own microwave radiation field. Some scientists believe that the fireball phenomenon is the result of the focusing of cosmic rays by clouds. Most cases of this phenomenon were recorded before a thunderstorm and during a thunderstorm, so the most relevant hypothesis is the emergence of an energetically favorable environment for the appearance of various plasma formations, one of which is lightning. The opinions of experts agree that when meeting with a heavenly guest, you must adhere to certain rules of conduct. The main thing is not to make sudden movements, not to run away, try to minimize air vibrations.

Their "behavior" is unpredictable, the trajectory and speed of flight defy any explanation. They, as if endowed with reason, can go around the obstacles facing them - trees, buildings and structures, or they can “crash” into them. After this collision, fires can start.

Often fireballs fly into people's homes. Through open windows and doors, chimneys, pipes. But sometimes even through a closed window! There is a lot of evidence of how CMM melted window glass, leaving behind a perfectly even round hole.

According to eyewitnesses, fireballs appeared from the outlet! They “live” from one to 12 minutes. They can simply disappear instantly without leaving any traces behind, but they can also explode. The latter is especially dangerous. Fatal burns can result from these explosions. It was also noticed that after the explosion, a rather persistent, very unpleasant smell of sulfur remains in the air.

There are ball lightning different colors- from white to black, from yellow to blue. When moving, they often hum like high-voltage power lines hum.

It remains a big mystery what affects the trajectory of its movement. It's definitely not the wind, as she can move against it as well. It is not a difference in the atmospheric phenomenon. These are not people and not other living organisms, since sometimes it can peacefully fly around them, and sometimes “crash” into them, which leads to death.

Ball lightning is evidence of our very unimportant knowledge of such a seemingly ordinary and already studied phenomenon as electricity. None of the previously put forward hypotheses has yet explained all its quirks. What is proposed in this article may not even be a hypothesis, but only an attempt to describe the phenomenon in a physical way, without resorting to exotics, such as antimatter. The first and main assumption: ball lightning is a discharge of ordinary lightning that has not reached the Earth. More precisely: ball and linear lightning are one process, but in two different modes - fast and slow.
When switching from a slow mode to a fast one, the process becomes explosive - ball lightning turns into a linear one. The reverse transition of linear lightning into ball lightning is also possible; In some mysterious, or perhaps random way, this transition was managed by the talented physicist Richmann, a contemporary and friend of Lomonosov. He paid for his luck with his life: the fireball he received killed its creator.
Ball lightning and the invisible atmospheric charge path connecting it with the cloud are in a special state of "elma". Elma, unlike plasma - low-temperature electrified air - is stable, cools down and spreads very slowly. This is due to the properties of the boundary layer between the elm and ordinary air. Here the charges exist in the form of negative ions, bulky and inactive. Calculations show that elms spread in as much as 6.5 minutes, and they are replenished regularly every thirtieth of a second. It is through such a time interval that an electromagnetic pulse passes in the discharge path, replenishing Kolobok with energy.

Therefore, the duration of the existence of ball lightning is, in principle, unlimited. The process should stop only when the charge of the cloud is exhausted, more precisely, the “effective charge” that the cloud is able to transfer to the path. This is exactly how the fantastic energy and relative stability of ball lightning can be explained: it exists due to the influx of energy from outside. So neutrino phantoms in Lem's science fiction novel Solaris, having the materiality of ordinary people and incredible strength, could exist only when colossal energy was supplied from the living Ocean.
The electric field in ball lightning is close in magnitude to the level of breakdown in a dielectric, whose name is air. In such a field, the optical levels of atoms are excited, which is why ball lightning glows. In theory, weak, non-luminous, and hence invisible ball lightning should be more frequent.
The process in the atmosphere develops in the mode of ball or linear lightning, depending on the specific conditions in the path. There is nothing incredible, rare in this duality. Consider ordinary combustion. It is possible in the regime of slow flame propagation, which does not exclude the regime of a rapidly moving detonation wave.

…Lightning descends from the sky. It is not yet clear what it should be, ball or ordinary. It greedily sucks the charge out of the cloud, and the field in the track decreases accordingly. If the field in the path drops below a critical value before it hits the Earth, the process will switch to the ball lightning mode, the path will become invisible, and we will notice that ball lightning descends to the Earth.

In this case, the external field is much smaller than the ball lightning's own field and does not affect its motion. That is why bright lightning moves randomly. Between flashes, ball lightning glows weaker, its charge is small. The motion is now directed by the external field and therefore rectilinear. Ball lightning can be carried by the wind. And it's clear why. After all, the negative ions that it consists of are the same air molecules, only with electrons attached to them.

The rebounding of ball lightning from the near-Earth "trampoline" layer of air is simply explained. When ball lightning approaches the Earth, it induces a charge in the soil, begins to release a lot of energy, heats up, expands and quickly rises under the action of the Archimedean force.

Ball lightning plus the Earth's surface form an electrical capacitor. It is known that a capacitor and a dielectric attract each other. Therefore, ball lightning tends to be located above dielectric bodies, which means it prefers to be above wooden bridges, or above a barrel of water. The long-wavelength radio emission associated with ball lightning is created by the entire path of ball lightning.

The hissing of ball lightning is caused by bursts of electromagnetic activity. These flashes follow with a frequency of about 30 hertz. The hearing threshold of the human ear is 16 hertz.

Ball lightning is surrounded by its own electromagnetic field. Flying past a light bulb, it can inductively heat up and burn out its coil. Once in the wiring of the lighting, radio broadcasting or telephone network, it closes its entire route to this network. Therefore, during a thunderstorm, it is desirable to keep the networks grounded, say, through discharge gaps.

Ball lightning, "flattened" over a barrel of water, together with the charges induced in the ground, constitutes a capacitor with a dielectric. Ordinary water is not an ideal dielectric, it has a significant electrical conductivity. A current begins to flow inside such a capacitor. Water is heated by Joule heat. The "barrel experiment" is well known, when ball lightning heated about 18 liters of water to a boil. According to a theoretical estimate, the average power of ball lightning during its free soaring in the air is approximately 3 kilowatts.

In exceptional cases, for example, under artificial conditions, an electrical breakdown can occur inside ball lightning. And then plasma appears in it! In this case, a lot of energy is released, artificial ball lightning can shine brighter than the Sun. But usually the power of ball lightning is relatively small - it is in the Elma state. Apparently, the transition of artificial ball lightning from the Elma state to the plasma state is possible in principle.

Knowing the nature of the electric Kolobok, you can make it work. Artificial ball lightning can greatly surpass natural in power. By drawing an ionized trace in the atmosphere with a focused laser beam along a given trajectory, we can direct the ball lightning to the right place. Now let's change the supply voltage, transfer the ball lightning to the linear mode. Giant sparks obediently rush along the trajectory we have chosen, crushing rocks, felling trees.

Thunderstorm over the airport. The air terminal is paralyzed: the landing and takeoff of planes is prohibited ... But the start button is pressed on the control panel of the lightning dissipative system. From a tower near the airfield, a fiery arrow shot up to the clouds. It was the artificial controlled ball lightning that had risen above the tower, switched to the linear lightning mode and, rushing into the thundercloud, entered it. The lightning path connected the cloud with the Earth, and the electric charge of the cloud was discharged to the Earth. The process can be repeated several times. There will be no more thunderstorms, the clouds have cleared. Planes can land and take off again.

In the Arctic, it will be possible to light an artificial sun. From the 200-meter tower, a 300-meter charge path of artificial ball lightning rises up. Ball lightning switches to plasma mode and shines brightly from a height of half a kilometer above the city.

For good illumination in a circle with a radius of 5 kilometers, ball lightning is sufficient, emitting a power of several hundred megawatts. In an artificial plasma regime, such a power is a solvable problem.

The Electric Gingerbread Man, which has avoided close acquaintance with scientists for so many years, will not leave: sooner or later it will be tamed, and it will learn to benefit people. B. Kozlov.

1. What is ball lightning is still not known for certain. Physicists have not yet learned how to reproduce real ball lightning in the laboratory. Of course, they get something, but scientists don’t know how similar this “something” is to a real fireball.

2. When there is no experimental data, scientists turn to statistics - to observations, eyewitness accounts, rare photographs. In fact, rare: if there are at least one hundred thousand photographs of ordinary lightning in the world, then there are much fewer photographs of ball lightning - only six to eight dozen.

3. The color of ball lightning can be different: red, dazzling white, blue, and even black. Witnesses saw fireballs in all shades of green and orange.

4. Judging by the name, all lightning should have the shape of a ball, but no, both pear-shaped and egg-shaped were observed. Particularly lucky observers were lightning in the form of a cone, ring, cylinder, and even in the form of a jellyfish. Someone saw a white tail behind the lightning.

5. According to the observations of scientists and eyewitness accounts, ball lightning can appear in a house through a window, a door, a stove, or even just appear out of nowhere. And it can also “blow out” from an electrical outlet. Outdoors, ball lightning can come from a tree and a pole, descend from clouds, or be born from ordinary lightning.

6. Usually ball lightning is small - fifteen centimeters in diameter or the size of a soccer ball, but there are also five-meter giants. Ball lightning does not live long - usually no more than half an hour, it moves horizontally, sometimes rotating, at a speed of several meters per second, sometimes it hangs motionless in the air.

7. Ball lightning shines like a hundred-watt light bulb, sometimes crackles or squeaks, and usually causes radio interference. Sometimes it smells - nitric oxide or the hellish smell of sulfur. With luck, it will quietly dissolve into the air, but more often it explodes, destroying and melting objects and evaporating water.

8. “... A red-cherry spot is visible on the forehead, and a thunderous electrical force came out of it from the legs to the boards. The legs and toes are blue, the shoe is torn, not burnt ... ". This is how the great Russian scientist Mikhail Vasilievich Lomonosov described the death of his colleague and friend Richman. He was also worried “that this case should not be interpreted against the increments of the sciences,” and he was right in his fears: in Russia, research on electricity was temporarily banned.

9. In 2010, Austrian scientists Josef Pier and Alexander Kendl of the University of Innsbruck suggested that evidence of ball lightning could be interpreted as a manifestation of phosphenes, that is, visual sensations without exposure to light on the eye. Their calculations show that the magnetic fields of certain lightning bolts with repeated discharges induce electric fields in the neurons of the visual cortex. Thus, fireballs are hallucinations.
The theory was published in the scientific journal Physics Letters A. Now, supporters of the existence of ball lightning must register ball lightning with scientific equipment, and thus refute the theory of Austrian scientists.

10. In 1761, ball lightning entered the church of the Vienna Academic College, tore off the gilding from the eaves of the altar column and laid it on a silver spit. People have a much harder time: at best, ball lightning will burn. But it can also kill - like Georg Richmann. Here's your hallucination!

Ball lightning

Ball lightning- a luminous ball floating in the air, a uniquely rare natural phenomenon, a unified physical theory of the occurrence and flow of which has not been presented to date. There are about 400 theories explaining the phenomenon, but none of them has received absolute recognition in the academic environment. Under laboratory conditions, similar, but short-term phenomena have been obtained in several different ways, but the question of the unique nature of ball lightning remains open. As of the end of the 20th century, not a single experimental stand was created on which this natural phenomenon would be artificially reproduced in accordance with the descriptions of eyewitnesses of ball lightning.

It is widely believed that ball lightning is a phenomenon of electrical origin, of natural nature, that is, it is a special type of lightning that exists for a long time and has the shape of a ball that can move along an unpredictable, sometimes surprising trajectory for eyewitnesses.

Traditionally, the reliability of many ball lightning eyewitness accounts remains in doubt, including:

by the very fact of observing at least some phenomenon;
the fact of observing ball lightning, and not some other phenomenon;
individual details given in the eyewitness account of the phenomenon.

Ball lightning usually appears in thunderstorm, stormy weather; often, but not necessarily, along with regular lightning. But there is a lot of evidence of its observation in sunny weather. Most often, it seems to “leave” the conductor or is generated by ordinary lightning, sometimes descends from the clouds, in rare cases it suddenly appears in the air or, as eyewitnesses report, it can come out of some object (tree, pillar).

Due to the fact that the appearance of ball lightning as a natural phenomenon is rare, and attempts to artificially reproduce it on the scale of a natural phenomenon fail, the main material for studying ball lightning is the evidence of casual eyewitnesses unprepared for observations, nevertheless, some evidence describes in great detail ball lightning and the reliability of these materials is beyond doubt. In some cases, contemporary eyewitnesses have photographed and/or filmed the phenomenon.

Observation history

Stories about observations of ball lightning have been known for two thousand years. In the first half of the 19th century, the French physicist, astronomer and naturalist F. Arago, perhaps the first in the history of civilization, collected and systematized all evidence of the appearance of ball lightning known at that time. In his book, 30 cases of observation of ball lightning were described. The statistics are small, and it is not surprising that many physicists of the 19th century, including Kelvin and Faraday, were inclined during their lifetime to believe that this was either an optical illusion or a phenomenon of a completely different, non-electrical nature. However, the number of cases, the detail of the description of the phenomenon and the reliability of the evidence increased, which attracted the attention of scientists, including prominent physicists.

In the late 1940s P. L. Kapitsa worked on the explanation of ball lightning.

A great contribution to the work on the observation and description of ball lightning was made by the Soviet scientist I.P. Stakhanov, who, together with S.L. Lopatnikov, in the journal Knowledge is Power in the 1970s. published an article on ball lightning. At the end of this article, he attached a questionnaire and asked eyewitnesses to send him their detailed recollections of this phenomenon. As a result, he accumulated extensive statistics - more than a thousand cases, which allowed him to generalize some of the properties of ball lightning and offer his theoretical model of ball lightning.

Historical evidence

Thunderstorm at Widecombe Moor
On October 21, 1638, lightning appeared during a thunderstorm in the church of the village of Wydecombe Moor, Devon, England. Eyewitnesses said that a huge fireball about two and a half meters across flew into the church. He knocked out several large stones and wooden beams from the walls of the church. Then the ball allegedly broke the benches, broke many windows and filled the room with thick dark smoke with the smell of sulfur. Then it split in half; the first ball flew out, breaking another window, the second disappeared somewhere inside the church. As a result, 4 people died and 60 were injured. The phenomenon was explained by the "coming of the devil", or "hell fire" and blamed for everything on two people who dared to play cards during the sermon.

Incident aboard the Catherine & Marie
In December 1726, some British newspapers printed an extract from a letter from a certain John Howell, who was on board the sloop "Catherine and Mary". “On August 29, we were walking along the bay off the coast of Florida, when suddenly a ball flew out of a part of the ship. He smashed our mast into 10,000 pieces, if that were even possible, and blew the beam to pieces. Also, the ball pulled out three boards from the side skin, from the underwater one and three from the deck; killed one man, injured the hand of another, and if it were not for the heavy rains, then our sails would have been simply destroyed by fire.

Incident aboard the Montag
The impressive size of the lightning is reported from the words of the ship's doctor Gregory in 1749. Admiral Chambers, aboard the Montag, went up on deck around noon to measure the ship's coordinates. He spotted a fairly large blue fireball about three miles away. The order was immediately given to lower the topsails, but the ball was moving very fast, and before it could change course, it flew up almost vertically and, being no more than forty or fifty yards above the rig, disappeared with a powerful explosion, which is described as a simultaneous volley of a thousand guns. The top of the mainmast was destroyed. Five people were knocked down, one of them received multiple bruises. The ball left behind a strong smell of sulfur; before the explosion, its value reached the size of a millstone.

Death of Georg Richmann
In 1753, Georg Richmann, a full member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, died from a ball lightning strike. He invented a device for studying atmospheric electricity, so when he heard at the next meeting that a thunderstorm was coming, he urgently went home with an engraver to capture the phenomenon. During the experiment, a bluish-orange ball flew out of the device and hit the scientist right in the forehead. There was a deafening roar, similar to the shot of a gun. Richman fell dead, and the engraver was stunned and knocked down. He later described what happened. A small dark crimson speck remained on the scientist's forehead, his clothes were scorched, his shoes were torn. The doorposts shattered into splinters, and the door itself was blown off its hinges. Later, M. V. Lomonosov personally inspected the scene.

The Warren Hastings incident
A British publication reported that in 1809 the Warren Hastings was "attacked by three balls of fire" during a storm. The crew saw one of them go down and kill a man on deck. The one who decided to take the body was hit by the second ball; he was knocked down and had minor burns on his body. The third ball killed another person. The crew noted that after the incident, there was a disgusting smell of sulfur above the deck.

Remarque in the literature of 1864
In the 1864 edition of A Guide to the Scientific Knowledge of Things Familiar, Ebenezer Cobham Brewer discusses "ball lightning". In his description, lightning appears as a slowly moving fireball of explosive gas, which sometimes descends to the earth and moves along its surface. It is also noted that the balls can split into smaller balls and explode "like a cannon shot."

Description in the book Lightning and Glow by Wilfried de Fontvieille
A French author's book reports about 150 ball lightning encounters: “Apparently, ball lightning is strongly attracted to metal objects, so they often end up near balcony railings, water and gas pipes. They do not have a specific color, their shade may be different, for example, in Köthen in the Duchy of Anhalt, lightning was green. M. Colon, Vice-President of the Geological Society of Paris, saw the ball slowly descend along the bark of a tree. Touching the surface of the ground, he jumped and disappeared without an explosion. On September 10, 1845, in the Correze Valley, lightning flew into the kitchen of one of the houses in the village of Salagnac. The ball rolled through the entire room without causing any damage to the people there. When he reached the barn bordering the kitchen, he suddenly exploded and killed a pig accidentally locked there. The animal was not familiar with the wonders of thunder and lightning, so it dared to smell in the most obscene and inappropriate way. Lightning does not move very fast: some have even seen them stop, but this does not make the balls less destructive. Lightning that flew into the church of the city of Stralsund, during the explosion, threw out several small balls, which also exploded like artillery shells.

Case from the life of Nicholas II
Last Russian emperor Nicholas II, in the presence of his grandfather Alexander II, observed a phenomenon that he called a "ball of fire". He recalled: “When my parents were away, my grandfather and I performed the rite of the all-night vigil in the Alexandria Church. There was a strong thunderstorm; it seemed that lightning, following one after another, was ready to shake the church and the whole world right to the ground. It suddenly became completely dark when a gust of wind opened the gates of the church and put out the candles in front of the iconostasis. There was more thunder than usual, and I saw a fireball fly through the window. The ball (it was lightning) circled on the floor, flew past the candelabra and flew out through the door into the park. My heart sank with fear and I looked at my grandfather - but his face was completely calm. He crossed himself with the same calmness as when lightning flew past us. Then I thought that to be frightened like me is inappropriate and unmanly ... After the ball flew out, I again looked at my grandfather. He smiled slightly and nodded at me. My fear disappeared and I was never afraid of a thunderstorm again.

A story from the life of Aleister Crowley
The famous British occultist Aleister Crowley spoke of what he called "ball-shaped electricity" and which he observed in 1916 during a thunderstorm on Pasconee Lake in New Hampshire. He took refuge in a small country house when “I noticed in silent astonishment that at a distance of six inches from my right knee a dazzling ball of electric fire three to six inches in diameter had stopped. I looked at him, and he suddenly exploded with a sharp sound that could not be confused with what was rampant outside: the noise of a thunderstorm, the sound of hail, or streams of water and crackling wood. My hand was closest to the ball and it only felt a slight impact."

Other evidence

During World War II, submariners repeatedly and consistently reported small fireballs occurring in the confined space of a submarine. They appeared when the battery was turned on, turned off, or incorrectly turned on, or in the event of a disconnection or incorrect connection of highly inductive electric motors. Attempts to reproduce the phenomenon using the submarine's spare battery ended in failure and explosion.

On August 6, 1944, in the Swedish city of Uppsala, ball lightning passed through a closed window, leaving behind a round hole about 5 cm in diameter. The phenomenon was not only observed by local residents, but also the lightning tracking system of Uppsala University, which is located in the department for the study of electricity and lightning, also worked.

In 1954, the physicist Domokos Tar observed lightning in a severe thunderstorm. He described what he saw in sufficient detail. “It happened on Margaret Island on the Danube. It was somewhere between 25-27 degrees Celsius, the sky quickly covered with clouds and a strong thunderstorm began. Nearby there was nothing to hide, only a lone bush nearby, which was bent by the wind to the ground. Suddenly, about 50 meters away from me, lightning struck the ground. It was a very bright channel 25-30 cm in diameter, it was exactly perpendicular to the surface of the earth. It was dark for about two seconds, and then a beautiful ball with a diameter of 30-40 cm appeared at a height of 1.2 m. bush. The ball sparkled like a small sun and rotated counterclockwise. The axis of rotation was parallel to the ground and perpendicular to the bush-hit-ball line. The ball also had one or two red curls, but not so bright, they disappeared after a fraction of a second (~0.3 s). The ball itself slowly moved horizontally along the same line from the bush. Its colors were clear, and the brightness itself was constant over the entire surface. There was no more rotation, the movement took place at a constant height and at a constant speed. I didn't notice any size changes. About three more seconds passed - the ball disappeared abruptly, and completely silently, although due to the noise of the thunderstorm I could not hear it. The author himself suggests that the temperature difference inside and outside the channel of ordinary lightning with the help of a gust of wind formed a kind of vortex ring, from which the observed ball lightning was then formed.

On July 10, 2011, in the Czech city of Liberec, ball lightning appeared in the control building of the city's emergency services. A ball with a two-meter tail jumped to the ceiling directly from the window, fell to the floor, bounced again to the ceiling, flew 2-3 meters, and then fell to the floor and disappeared. This frightened the employees, who smelled burnt wiring and believed that a fire had started. All computers hung (but did not break), communication equipment was out of order for the night until it was repaired. In addition, one monitor was destroyed.

On August 4, 2012, ball lightning frightened a villager in the Pruzhany district of the Brest region. According to the newspaper "Rayonnyya Budni", ball lightning flew into the house during a thunderstorm. Moreover, as the hostess of the house, Nadezhda Vladimirovna Ostapuk, told the publication, the windows and doors in the house were closed and the woman could not understand how the fireball entered the room. Luckily, the woman figured out that she shouldn't make any sudden movements, and just stayed where she was, watching the lightning. Ball lightning flew over her head and discharged into the electrical wiring on the wall. As a result of an unusual natural phenomenon, no one was injured, only the interior decoration of the room was damaged, the newspaper reports.

Artificial reproduction of the phenomenon

Review of approaches for artificial reproduction of ball lightning

Since there is a clear connection in the appearance of ball lightning with other manifestations of atmospheric electricity (for example, ordinary lightning), most of the experiments were carried out according to the following scheme: a gas discharge was created (and the glow of a gas discharge is a well-known thing), and then conditions were sought when the luminous discharge could would exist in the form of a spherical body. But researchers have only short-term gas discharges of a spherical shape, living for a maximum of a few seconds, which does not correspond to eyewitness accounts of natural ball lightning.

List of artificially reproduced ball lightning claims

The first detailed studies of a glowing electrodeless discharge were carried out only in 1942 by the Soviet electrical engineer Babat: he managed to obtain a spherical gas discharge inside a low pressure chamber for a few seconds.

Kapitsa was able to obtain a spherical gas discharge at atmospheric pressure in a helium environment. Additives of various organic compounds changed the brightness and color of the glow.

Theoretical explanations of the phenomenon

In our age, when physicists know what happened in the first seconds of the existence of the Universe, and what is happening in black holes that have not yet been discovered, we still have to admit with surprise that the main elements of antiquity - air and water - still remain a mystery to us.

I.P. Stakhanov

Classification of theories

On the basis of the place of the energy source that supports the existence of ball lightning, theories can be divided into two classes: those suggesting an external source, and theories that consider that the source is inside the ball lightning.

Review of existing theories

The following theory assumes that ball lightning is heavy positive and negative air ions formed during an ordinary lightning strike, the recombination of which is prevented by their hydrolysis. Under the influence of electric forces, they gather into a ball and can coexist for quite a long time until their water “fur coat” collapses. This also explains the fact that the different color of ball lightning and its direct dependence on the time of existence of the ball lightning itself - the rate of destruction of water "fur coats" and the beginning of the process of avalanche recombination.

Literature

Books and reports on ball lightning

Stakhanov I.P. On the physical nature of ball lightning. - Moscow: (Atomizdat, Energoatomizdat, scientific world), (1979, 1985, 1996). - 240 s.
S. Singer The nature of ball lightning. Per. from English. M.: Mir, 1973, 239 p.
Imyanitov I. M., Tikhiy D. Ya. Beyond the laws of science. Moscow: Atomizdat, 1980
Grigoriev A. I. Ball lightning. Yaroslavl: YarSU, 2006. 200 p.
Lisitsa M. P., Valakh M. Ya. Interesting optics. Atmospheric and space optics. Kyiv: Logos, 2002, 256 p.
Brand W. Der Kugelblitz. Hamburg, Henri Grand, 1923
Stakhanov I.P. On the physical nature of ball lightning M.: Energoatomizdat, 1985, 208 p.
Kunin V. N. Ball lightning at the experimental site. Vladimir: Vladimir State University, 2000, 84 p.

Articles in magazines

Torchigin V. P., Torchigin A. V. Ball lightning as a concentrate of light. Chemistry and Life, 2003, No. 1, 47-49.
Barry J. Ball lightning. Bead lightning. Per. from English. M.: Mir, 1983, 228 p.
Shabanov G.D., Sokolovsky B.Yu.// Plasma Physics Reports. 2005. V31. No. 6. P512.
Shabanov G.D.// Technical Physics Letters. 2002. V28. No. 2. P164.

Ball lightning in fiction

Russell, Eric Frank"Sinister barrier" 1939

Notes

I. Stakhanov "Physicist who knew more about ball lightning"
Such a Russian variant of the name is listed in the list of UK telephone codes. There are also variants of Widecomb-in-the-Moor and direct dubbing of the original English Widecomb-in-the-Moor - Widecomb-in-the-Moor
Conductor from Kazan saved passengers from ball lightning
Ball lightning scared a villager in the Brest region [email protected]
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Where is ball lightning. What is ball lightning? Photos and interesting facts. The point of view of official physics

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Historical evidence

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What is ball lightning

Ball Lightning Mystery

Ball lightning of Nikola Tesla

Historical evidence

Death of Georg Richmann

The Warren Hastings incident

Contemporary evidence

How ball lightning occurs

Observation history

Historical evidence

Artificial reproduction of the phenomenon

Review of approaches for artificial reproduction of ball lightning

List of artificially reproduced ball lightning claims

Theoretical explanations of the phenomenon

Classification of theories

Review of existing theories

see also

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Ball lightning in fiction

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