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Lightning is electricity.
Fire is fire.

Lightning is electricity and fire is something that is burning for a start. The reason lighting burns is because it has a voltage so high that is leaves the burn marks. You can get burn marks from any electrical source with a high enough voltage.

No, they’re not. Fire is essentially the combustion of some kind of fuel, like petrol or wood. It requires oxygen in which to burn and does not exceed temperatures of around 1500 degrees centigrade (2730 Fahrenheit).

Lightning, on the other hand, is caused by a buildup of electrical charge in a cloud discharging itself through the ground, like sometimes when you’ve been walking on a soft carpet you get an electric shock if you touch a metal doorhandle. The principle is the same. The lightning you see is the result of the electrical charge superheating the air to form a plasma, a completely different state of matter. Plasma can vary in temperature immensely, up to a high of around 100 000 000 (100 million) degrees Centigrade.

Isn’t heat a by product of lighting?

Lightning can also occur within the ash clouds from volcanic eruptions, or can be caused by violent forest fires which generate sufficient dust to create a static charge.

you might have a point

Lightning

One of the Tertiary Elements, often considered a nearly-even mix of Air and Fire.

http://elothtes.pbwiki.com/Lightning%…

Lightning is plasma. And although they both release energy in the form of heat, this doesn’t make them the same (your body also releases energy in the form of heat, but this doesn’t make you a fire).

Fire is actually a chemical reaction, lightning is a physical one. they are not the same. neither ARE heat, they just creatie it as a by-product.

Well, lightning striking something can start a fire because it’s so hot.

I did once hear a story of someone making plasma using a candle and a microwave, but that doesn’t really happen in nature otherwise…

With luck. A lot of luck.

Just Adam wrote:
How does one survive getting struck by lightning?

by grounding - electricty is a current, and therefore will, by its nature run “the easiest possible course” - therefore, as long as you are earthed (i.e the current can easilly pass from you to something that can absorb it and does not complete the circuit - i.e rubber, or the ground) then you have a good chance of being unharmed…

if the circuit is completed, as the body is primarly water, a good conductor, then you will cook!

oh, and luck helps too - when dealing with that shear amount of volts, being lucky is a good thing! :D

oh, look up a faraday cage for a giggle

SlightlyUnique wrote:

Just Adam wrote:
How does one survive getting struck by lightning?

by grounding - electricty is a current, and therefore will, by its nature run “the easiest possible course” - therefore, as long as you are earthed (i.e the current can easilly pass from you to something that can absorb it and does not complete the circuit - i.e rubber, or the ground) then you have a good chance of being unharmed…

if the circuit is completed, as the body is primarly water, a good conductor, then you will cook!

oh, and luck helps too - when dealing with that shear amount of volts, being lucky is a good thing! :D

oh, look up a faraday cage for a giggle

Um, actually, no. If lightning strikes you, you get that current flowing through your body, which, as slightlyunique pointed out, is 70% water. You’ll fry. However, if you ground yourself you make it easier for the lightning to reach the ground through your body, and therefore make yourself more likely to get hit in the first place. Wearing rubber shoes insulates yourself and makes you far less likely to be struck. Lightning striking the ground doesn’t form a circuit - it’s a one-way transfer of electrical charge.

ah crap… :P its nice to be corrected :) thanks! :)

although how do some people survive direct lightning hits - i thought that if you are lucky, the current will blast through your body into the ground, and as long as you have nothing metalic for the lightning to bounce to, you will earth naturally… - If you stand in a puddle when you get hit, you have a complete circuit, and therefore you get to have your very own bbq :P - on land (depending on what you are standing on ofc) it means you don’t have a complete circuit…

ofc, thinking about it, would this mean if you decide to be really suicidal, stand in a middle of a field, wearing rubber soled shoes, and holding a large metal pole to the heavens, would this mean when the pole gets hit, you will fry, or the rubber will prevent the circuit?

Okay, let me say this again:

there

is

no

circuit

Lightning is a transfer of a huge amount of electrical charge from one place to another. That’s the definition of an electrical current, but this current only exists for a fraction of a second. In that fraction of a second, negative charge from the clouds flows into the ground and is dissipated, end of story.

If there is a person in the way of this happening, then for a fraction of a second they have this current, which is strong enough to heat the air around it to tens of thousands of degrees, running through them. Result: they get fried. There’s no circuit, just a one-way current.

If the person is lucky, the extreme heat won’t kill them, but they are invariably badly burned from the experience.

SlightlyUnique wrote:
ofc, thinking about it, would this mean if you decide to be really suicidal, stand in a middle of a field, wearing rubber soled shoes, and holding a large metal pole to the heavens, would this mean when the pole gets hit, you will fry, or the rubber will prevent the circuit?

Now, in answer to your question, lightning always travels along the path of least resistance. That means if there’s some sort of insulator blocking its way (like a pair of rubber-soled shoes), it’ll find some other path. So in theory, you could go around in a field waving a metal pole in the air and wearing rubber shoes during a thunderstorm and be perfectly fine. I still wouldn’t recommend it though - water’s a good conductor of electricity so if it’s raining you might be screwed anyway…

well said :)

Lol thanks. Sorry for being pedantic - I’m a physicist :P

oh god no! don’t worry about that! if i’m not corrected, how am i supposed to learn? - and its good being corrected by someone that KNOWS :D

so thanks! :)

I was going to ask why does lighning not always arc to the nearest conductor, instead of striking the ground - but then i realised that the chances are the ground is already damp, thus creating the arc-points…

or am i wrong…?

Well, lightning is caused by friction between water molecules in clouds. This causes a buildup of electrons in the cloud, causing the cloud to become negatively charged. The negative charge in the cloud repels electrons in the ground (and everything else), causing the overall charge on the ground underneath the charge to become positive. When the difference in charges is great enough, you get a lightning strike which rebalances everything again. The reason lightning only strikes the ground is that usually, nothing else is big enough to accumulate a large enough positive charge. It’ll only strike conductors if the current can get into the ground from there.

so…

the principle behind lighning rods is simply that they are a closer point to the clouds, that means its the path of least resistance to the ground - shorter distance = less charge required to arc?

and…

when we get struck by lighning, its literally bad luck as we are walking through a positvely charged area - and since we are mostly water, the arc is drawn to us…

correct?

Sorta - lighning rods work by offering less resistance than the air around them. They’re usually used to stop tall buildings being damaged by lightning, and are connected to the ground by a metal wire. It’s the same sort of principle as digging a trench to guide floodwater away from your town.

And yes, being hit by lightning is just a matter of bad luck - if you want to avoid it make sure you’re not the tallest conducting object around in a thunderstorm (or just stay indoors).

lighting is static electricity

ezp0 wrote:
lighting is static electricity

*lightning

Lightning sparks fire off, it almost converts into fire so i can’t say it isn’t. Though fire is fire.

Wow, I remember this post! I always wonder how people stumble across these things after a year or so…

same! - i was just re-reading it and smiling - it was a day i learnt something new :D

Lightning holds heat of 20,000 degrees, that’s hotter than the surface of the sun. It holds in heat and will create fire with it if it touches anything flammable. I don’t know but it is made up of powerful heat so i’ve come to the conclusion that it only generates fire.

no offence lads, but why the hell are you adding to this post when

a) it over a year old
b) its already been answered

?

Nostalgia.

Lightning is a plasma, Fire, for all intents and purposes, is pure energy.

holy crap, i didnt realize how old this post was…