How is lightning formed physics
- how is electricity made in a thunderstorm
- how is static electricity created in thunderstorms
- how does lightning produce electricity
- is lightning electricity
What causes lightning and thunder.
How is thunder formed
How do Thunderstorms and Lightning Work?
At any one time, all around the world, there are 2,000 thunderstorms happening, producing over a 100 lightning strikes a second. That's over 8 million lightning bolts every day unleashing the power of 2 million tons of TNT.
But how do clouds come by all this energy, and couldn't we put it to good use?
| Figure 1: At any time there are over 2,000 thunderstorms occurring worldwide, each producing over a 100 lightning strikes a second.
Thats over 8 million lightning bolts every day. |
Scientists began to suspect that lightning must be a form of electricity as early as the 1700s because it looked similar to the sparks you could produce by rubbing certain materials together.
Scottish scientist Robert Symmer had this off to a fine art and earned the dubious title of "the barefoot philosopher" because he was always removing his silk socks and rubbing them on things to produce sparks.
But it was a daring experiment by Benjamin Franklin in 1752, and one which he was lucky to survive, that proved it once and for all.
Franklin flew a kite
- can lightning be used to generate electricity
- how does thunder occur