Australian boffins have a ball with lightning maths Scientists at Australia’s CSIRO have put forward a mathematical model which they believe could help explain the origin of ball lightning. While people have observed ball lightning for centuries – at least – explaining it has been so troublesome that it’s attracted a variety of strange hypotheses – all the way to microwave …
Some McMcMcnoodle wishes to tell us that all language is equal. No it isn't. Pray discern for yourself the origin of 'Shibboleth' as it may concentrate your mind on the extreme cultural barbarity that can be associated with words. It may be in the use or pronunciation. So now you should try and do better. If general encouragement fails then seek a university that offers degree-level courses in 'math'.
"Two math degrees? That must be maths then."
No. One was pure math. The other was applied math. Just like my two A-levels from 1976, both of which read "math", not "maths", at least according to the paperwork. Together, they are "maths".
The mind boggles at the folks trying to maintain a grasp of the Empire. The world has moved on. Live with reality.
"Jake: it is www.theregister.co.uk"
So the hell what? Anyone can read ElReg, world-wide. And can comment from pretty much anywhere, world wide. And ElReg seems to like it that way.
"Americans do not get to dictate British spelling (yet)."
What's the British spelling of "router"? Is it "rooter" or "rowter"?
Please note that ElReg has Aussie & Yank offices. And I'll warrant that the bulk of ElReg's readership & commentards are Yanks. Stop being so provincial. Rumor has it that a large percentage of the nomenclature in the techie world was invented by Yanks. Probably because we invented the tech.
Again, language mutates. Get used to it.
The term "math" is not commonly used in British English. The expression "maths" is used in the UK in either context, plural or singular. Hence "lightning maths" not "lightning math". Indeed my spell-checker (set for UK English) has just red-lined "math" as a spelling error. :P
> Language mutates. Deal with it.
Or in the US, language "degenerates".
"Math" may be used as an abbreviation for "mathematical" i.e. in an adjective sense e.g. "math. study".
However, "maths" is the proper abbreviation for "mathematics", defined as a group of related studies leading to the plural form.
Also, the word "math" is f*cking irritating. Deal with that.
and he's got a long line of you strung up, wiggling wetly. You lot don't learn.
I detest 'math' but anyone who can speak english[*] owns it as much as I do, a native speaker, and that's the strength of it and that's how I like it.
There are bigger things of course but some people's minds take very, very small steps, and ever will.
[*] deliberately uncapitalised so your head bursts. A very small pop it shall be too.
Uhh, jake?
You can't mandate correct usage _and_ say "language mutates" in the same post. Language mutates... Therefore dictionaries and such are _descriptive_, not _proscriptive_. Or you can tell us what the "proper" usage is and pretend nobody else is supposed to use it any different from you. You don't get to have your cake and tell us how to spell it too.
I think it's likely there is more than one cause because one model could never explain all the observations that have been reported. Some of the observed characteristics are directly contradictory to each other, i.e., having it appear in sealed areas like diesel submarine battery banks where there is no lightning as such. Sometimes it can pass through a window without incident, other times it burns a hole through the glass.
My mom said when she was a kid she saw ball lightning come out of the mouthpiece of the phone (one of those old timey wall phones from the 30s) and float across the room and then dump into a bucket of wash water that was sitting on the other side of the room, disappearing with a loud pop and bright flash. When they got up the courage to touch the water some time later, it was still a bit warm.
Seen it once, about 2 ft diameter. Very pretty, n fascinating. It left its own little crop circle like mark in the neighbors lawn.
I suspect the physics behind it would have some really cool applications, once we understand it. If not it makes a hell of a pretty light show. Good luck on this one guys!
Take a powerful flash with a circular head or make one from your cooking foil hat. Get someone to set it off while you look just to the left or right of it.
This leaves an image of a circle (ball!!!) burned in your retina for a while. You can then try and look at the image by moving you eyes to point at it and voilà the ball moves - and even passes through glass if you look at a window. Now convince yourself the only solution is ball lightning and not the bleeding obvious.
You can even get it to write your name in the sky if you're feeling messianic.
Marks left? A lightning strike causes all sorts of burns and scorches almost instantly so if your eye has temporary retina burn from the main flash source (there may be many nearly simultaneous flashes) the eyes can them move towards these other sources of light with the main retina burn following giving the illusion of a continuous moving and shrinking ball of light. Remember it can kill people across almost a whole football pitch - scorching a few things in a room is a piece of piss.
Most cases of reports of ball lightning that I've seen are easily explained by the above and mans ability to fill in gaps in their heads with all sorts of convincing stuff. I know - I've been a couple of feet away from a lightning strike and thought I'd seen all sorts of things but realised that half the so called flash I thought I saw was due the the sheer percussive force of the thunder and about 6 pints of adrenalin running round my system afterwards. And the lack of windows after the strike was a bit of a clue too.
I'd love ball lightning to exist cos it would be so much fun but it doesn't. I'm not saying their maths is wrong - you do get glows above ground over small earthquakes and stresses ground and sprites etc above storms which is what I believe this maths might help explain but to expect reliable scientific observations from someone who has just stood next to the loudest firework you will every hear/feel is a bit much.
I am a Brit, yet have always found the debates of American/UK spelling odd, given the considerable contributions to standard dictionaries by our American cousins. It is my understanding that Webster's was published before the first Oxford English Dictionary. It is also my understanding that one of the major contributors to the OED was an American doctor from the Union army, who was somewhat traumatised during the civil war. He came to England and was arrested for murder during a fight in a London bar. He was then committed to Broadmoor, a somewhat famous institution for the criminally insane. Whilst there, he communicated with the OED compilers by letter. Remarkably they did not recognise the significance of his address, they though it was a grand country mansion During his incarceration there, he used his surgical skills to castrate himself.
I must admit since 'mathematics' is plural, I prefer the shortened version 'maths'.
Having heard of BL passing through glass and annihilating a TV, that same evening a "column of fire" came out of a Sony 14" TV.
That one turned out to be a failed diode in the B+ stage, seems that whatever hit this unfortunate TV blew the diode and created an arc between the EHT and ground.
Amazingly after changing the diode and a few other parts "just in case" the TV worked again which just proves that Sony knew how to make stuff back in the day.
I have seen BL-like effects before from distant storms, but nothing close-up yet.
and I do hear young people here saying 'math' rather than 'maths'. They also say 'elevator' instead of 'lift' and many other things. So you're all wrong, or right, or something.
As for ball lightning, I've never seen it, but it might explain the Min Min Lights.
On the CSIRO blog detailing the research, a commentator describes his experience when he accidentally created ball lightning with a 100 kA short circuit: a one foot diameter glowing ball that moved around the room. Though no one was injured, several observers had to be treated for shock.
http://csironewsblog.com/2012/10/12/goodness-gracious-great-balls-of-lighting-2/
The nonchalance of his description must surely mark him out as a true boffin:
"In the mid 1980s, while investigating failure modes of power thyristors, I accidentally induced a transient earth fault ..."
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