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all 34 comments

[–]fiskekake 11 points12 points ago

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Could someone explain what's going on here? Looks like the initial lightning spilt up and is searching for the ground, and as soon as one of them hits it, there's another lightning. How does this work? What's going on? Is it magic?

[–]wileycat 13 points14 points ago

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"A stepped leader (possibly also referred to as a step leader) is a path of ionized air which extends downward from a thundercloud during the initial stages of atmospheric breakdown during a lightning strike. Often, there are multiple, branching stepped leaders. As the step leaders form, these branches of ionized air form in a stepwise fashion, followed by a short period of inactivity, until the final step leader reaches the ground: a tall object on the ground, or a positive streamer extending upward from a ground object. At this point, the lightning strike begins as an immensely large negative electric current along the path defined by the stepped leaders, but in the opposite direction: from ground to cloud. This current is often referred to as the return stroke." - wikipedia

[–]pickyourteethup 25 points26 points ago

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tl;dr - it was magic.

[–]NeoScout 2 points3 points ago

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magnets

[–]slimjames[S] 3 points4 points ago

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I'd love to know if there's a video source for this... anyone? Bueller?

[–]zlx 8 points9 points ago*

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I believe it's from this: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1150574/

Found it on youtube too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_pa_UGfLh8

[–]slimjames[S] 2 points3 points ago

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Thank you, random internet person!

That video is pretty cool. So is the accent of the narrator.

[–]fivetoone 0 points1 point ago

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The footage is really cool, but those added sound effects are annoying as hell.

[–]AnInaneMea 1 point2 points ago

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I never realized the whole mechanics behind a bolt of lightning (return stoke and all). Pretty damn cool.

[–]GilChesterton 1 point2 points ago

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God's anger, manifested in magical fire, descends from the heavens, and then goes back up. You can't explain that.

[–]mrpoopsalot 1 point2 points ago

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You had me at "slo-mo" and "stroke."

[–]Laserfalcon 0 points1 point ago

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I can never look at the chart of lightning types without thinking of LARP pine-cone lightning.

[–]LettersFromTheSky 0 points1 point ago

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this is pretty awesome.

[–]cyte 0 points1 point ago

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Electricity is awesome.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point ago

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Gif's been around for a while, but i won't hate. Cause this is one of the best lighting gif's i've ever seen, and more people should check it out for the: 0_0 ///upboat!

[–]slimjames[S] 0 points1 point ago

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Uh, thanks... I did search a bit for it on reddit, first. If I missed it, apologies.

I've seen stuff reposted w/in just weeks get upvoted to the front page... THAT bothers me, but if something's a few months or years old, it's going to be the first time many many readers see it, or if it's really cool, it's worth seeing again.

[–]zenerix 0 points1 point ago

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Logged in just to comment on how awesome of a gif this is. I sat and watched it at least 10 times..it's amazing to see nature in such a way [6]

[–]cantbebothered 0 points1 point ago

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This reminds me of that video game where you have to protect the towns.

[–]neeto85 0 points1 point ago

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It's so fractaly! I just watched it cycle for 5 minutes straight, and I haven't smoked weed in ages. Thanks for the video!

[–]joshuammeyer 0 points1 point ago

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I wonder if this is what the brain looks like when it completes a great idea. I'd at least like to hope so.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point ago

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I want this as my desktop background in full HD.

[–]cgiall420 1 point2 points ago

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Can anyone confirm that this is real? I don't really know how many frames per second this super slow mo video is taken, but last I checked, lightening still travels at the speed of light. So to get this much video to me seems unlikely.

[–][deleted] 13 points14 points ago

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Electricity does not travel at the speed of light.

[–]cyte 4 points5 points ago

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Correct, the bolt can propagate at around 20,000km/h. Just a bit slower than light's 1,079 million km/h... However, the light emitted by the heating of the air (what we see) obviously does travel at the speed of light.

[–]cgiall420 2 points3 points ago

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ok, my mistake

But it's still pretty goddamn fast: 93,000 miles per second, not 186,000

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/gen99/gen99096.htm

[–]Nerull 1 point2 points ago

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The electricity moves through the ionized path very quickly - as seen in the return stroke. But the "stepped leader" channels form quite slowly - taking up to a second to reach the ground. 1 second is a long time to a high speed camera.

[–]cgiall420 0 points1 point ago

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that's amazing. are the stepped ladders visible to the naked eye? Do they always occur?

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points ago

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Pretty sure that's the absolute upper end of any estimates that have been made.

[–]cgiall420 0 points1 point ago

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well then enlighten me. how fast do you think it goes?

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points ago

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Anywhere from 60,000 to your number. It's incredibly hard to measure, and it's not constant. I wasn't saying your number is wrong, I was saying your number is the very upper limit of how fast it goes, which means it's possible for it to go much slower, which means there are easily cameras that can detect movement like this. No need for the downvote.

[–]cgiall420 0 points1 point ago

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No need for the downvote.

no, none at all, especially when I just ask a simple question and state right away that I don't know much about high-speed photography. 60,000 miles per second still sounds pretty damn fast to capture on film, but I'm done with this question now.

[–]maxmtrx -2 points-1 points ago

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the speed of light = 299 792 458 m / s

Usually just say C=3E8 m/s

[–]kylelee33 -1 points0 points ago

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this is the oldest fucking thing on the internet.