TWIL: About lightning

I got into a debate with Gary last week. He said a man that week had been struck by lightning that had gone through his body and ended by burning a hole in his sock.

I argued that they had taken slow-speed photos of lightning and it travels from the ground up. 

Turns out we were both right. There's ground to cloud lightning AND cloud to ground lightning, but usually the ions travel one way and the light another. 

Comments

[KC]

Lightning is phenomenally weird. Just. Phenomenally weird. (so is static electricity; from what I understand, we still don't understand *why* rubbing your hair on a balloon does an ion transfer.) (... maybe it is just electricity in general, she thinks, remembering circuit diagrams and how electricity "flows" except it doesn't except it does...)

[theQueen]

KC - maybe the static electricity is -- because of the rubbing -- the ions don't know which direction to move?

[KC]

Ah, so mob behavior from all the disrupted ions...

[theQueen]

KC - the swirl before the stampede ...