Prize is too low. Says it only delivers 38 gallons of gas equivalent energy, assuming no loss which there will be.
margalabargala 8 hours ago [-]
There are some places that are hit by lighting with high regularity where it might make sense. Lightning rods on tall buildings. Somewhere near here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catatumbo_lightning
deepandmeaning 21 hours ago [-]
I'm imagining it's something related to the copper wire.
teh_infallible 20 hours ago [-]
I always wanted to replicate this with a helium balloon and a long, wet string coated with copper filings.
batch12 18 hours ago [-]
You'd probably need a very large balloon to overcome the weight of the string
CamelCaseCondo 18 hours ago [-]
Maybe just salt water and skip the filings?
CamperBob2 11 hours ago [-]
Even better, use hydrogen!
aaron695 5 hours ago [-]
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raulparada 15 hours ago [-]
If that new theory turns out to be somewhat right, there'll be something humbling about ancient greeks stories of Zeus sending Hephaestus bolts from ~'heaven/the cosmos' being closer to it than our modern explanations all along
somedrag 14 hours ago [-]
There's a Feynman lecture abput electricity in the atmosphere that is interesting to read alongside this article:
I found this article interesting but lacking. Lightning also sometimes travels from the ground up to the clouds. Storm clouds produce red sprites (there are some theories about these) and blue jets, that shoot upwards towards space. Then there's ball lightning. None of these phenomena were discussed in the article.
I don't think scientists fully understand lightning at all. (At least, I don't!)
saltyoldman 11 hours ago [-]
Probably the same thing that causes my fingers to get a small spark when I'm walking in the grocery store holding a cart and touching the shelves.
varispeed 7 hours ago [-]
I sometimes get a spark when petting my cat
cinderelacinder 21 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
freehorse 19 hours ago [-]
Tl;dr lightings may be caused by electrons/positrons from outer space hitting a cloud and initiating an "avalanche" of electrons.
xattt 15 hours ago [-]
There’s a video of an EF5 tornado from the last 24-48 hours that shows continuous lightning in the background.
There hasn’t been an increase in background cosmic rays, so likely the mechanism for lightning generation is likely a continuum in different scenarios. Cosmic rays are one, but not all.
aaarrm 13 hours ago [-]
I tried to find this after reading your comment and the amount of nonsense AI tornado videos is a lot to wade through. Wasn't able to find it.
Despite the title, the video shows a really strong mesocyclone as there is a break between the cloud and the ground. The funnel might be visible, but it’s not as big as the video makes you think.
Cosmic rays are mostly protons, not electrons or positrons. You're mixing up to separate theories in the article.
nirse 16 hours ago [-]
Well, the primary particles that hit the atmosphere are mostly protons. They cause avalanche of secondaires that are varied but mostly muons,
sidewndr46 13 hours ago [-]
As others have mentioned you are correct. But Earth's atmosphere has plenty of all forms of matter. A proton can interact with mostly anything and accelerate it. So you can find high energy everything in low earth orbit.
nephihaha 17 hours ago [-]
Much of the time they occur when two weather fronts of different temperatures collide with each other.
metalman 20 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
cratermoon 14 hours ago [-]
Neutrons, neutrinos, photons, Z bosons and Higgs bosons are all neutral particles and carry no charge.
metalman 13 hours ago [-]
no detectable ELECTRICAL charge, but they do
contain "energy", and do attract with other particles, so I am still ABSOLUTLY totaly correct in my statement.
"the universe is an energy gradient", and one of the few absolutes
avazhi 11 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
chermi 10 hours ago [-]
Explain exactly what's click bait about it? Spell it out like I'm an idiot who found the article quite good for a fairly wide audience.
dezsiszabi 9 hours ago [-]
Is that the purpose of Quanta? To provide new info, new info to who? To you, specifically?
We don’t even understand friction. Which is one source of static charges, which we thus don’t understand well either. And static charges that somehow accumulate in the clouds cause lightning, which… I think you get the point.
dnnddidiej 16 hours ago [-]
It is cool that something so seemingly ordinary is extraordinary.
JadeNB 17 hours ago [-]
Not to be flip, but, depending on what "fully" means, we haven't fully understood much of anything about the real world.
echelon 16 hours ago [-]
We don't even have an accurate mathematical description of how a single water molecule works.
We have so much scientific work to do.
nephihaha 17 hours ago [-]
Never mind this kind of lightning, it gets really interesting when we start to look at ball lightning, which is very real but rarely sighted.
Tomte 17 hours ago [-]
As a child I saw an acted segment about ball lightning in childrens‘ TV, following a person around the house, and had nightmares for a long time afterwards. The thing is spooky as hell.
sidewndr46 13 hours ago [-]
As long as you reject the hypothesis of "ionized matter" ball lightning is completely unexplainable. If you accept that ionized matter is hot and gives off plenty of EM radiation, it's pretty simple.
fguerraz 19 hours ago [-]
So, nothing new?
The cosmic ray hypothesis has been dominant for a few years now.
This magazine…
JadeNB 17 hours ago [-]
> So, nothing new?
> The cosmic ray hypothesis has been dominant for a few years now.
> This magazine…
I think saying "This magazine…" as if the flaws of Quanta are well understood and agreed may need additional elaboration. If you mean that experts have known this—well, the role of Quanta is to disseminate and explain expert research to scientifically literate non-experts; it is not meant to be distributing the latest research itself.
avazhi 4 hours ago [-]
> the role of Quanta is to disseminate and explain expert research to scientifically literate non-experts; it is not meant to be distributing the latest research itself
Quanta articles are invariably horribly written, horribly explained, and constantly do this thing whether they simultaneously are pretentious and over complicate things while also belabouring simple, elementary concepts. Essentially it’s the worst of every world.
And that’s to say nothing about how they click bait everything.
paxcoder 15 hours ago [-]
[dead]
fguerraz 12 hours ago [-]
Well, let's say I just don't understand the popularity of this magazine on HN.
kami23 11 hours ago [-]
Why not explain why you think that? We can't all be perpetually online to have an opinion about a one website that shows up occasionally on this site.
avazhi 4 hours ago [-]
Not the guy you’re responding to but Quanta articles are invariably horribly written, horribly explained, and constantly do this thing whether they simultaneously are pretentious and over complicate things while also belabouring simple, elementary concepts. Essentially it’s the worst of every world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BJIiX9_c_M
Any ideas why the lightning strike appears mostly green (and momentarily purple and orange)?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvesting_lightning_energy
https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/II_09.html
I don't think scientists fully understand lightning at all. (At least, I don't!)
There hasn’t been an increase in background cosmic rays, so likely the mechanism for lightning generation is likely a continuum in different scenarios. Cosmic rays are one, but not all.
Despite the title, the video shows a really strong mesocyclone as there is a break between the cloud and the ground. The funnel might be visible, but it’s not as big as the video makes you think.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Enderlin_tornado#Tornado_...
Its purpose: https://www.quantamagazine.org/about/
We have so much scientific work to do.
The cosmic ray hypothesis has been dominant for a few years now.
This magazine…
> The cosmic ray hypothesis has been dominant for a few years now.
> This magazine…
I think saying "This magazine…" as if the flaws of Quanta are well understood and agreed may need additional elaboration. If you mean that experts have known this—well, the role of Quanta is to disseminate and explain expert research to scientifically literate non-experts; it is not meant to be distributing the latest research itself.
Quanta articles are invariably horribly written, horribly explained, and constantly do this thing whether they simultaneously are pretentious and over complicate things while also belabouring simple, elementary concepts. Essentially it’s the worst of every world.
And that’s to say nothing about how they click bait everything.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/biology-confronts-data-comple...
The presence of an em-dash is not a smoking gun.