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Bereta_Eder
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The most freaky incident of lighting I've heard was this.
A woman was hit by lightning and killed, in the middle of Athens, in a cemetary, while attending someone else's funeral...
A child that was standing next to her got his eardrums shattered. It started raining and some people, including her, took temporary refuge under a tree...
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Dis
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Las Vegas, Nevada
Feb 2000
time: 21:31
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quote:
Originally posted by Elok
Actually, according to my first-aid instructor from last year, who spent several years in hospitals, NOBODY survives getting "struck by lightning." Which really ought to be obvious-it's a bolt of plasma hotter than the surface of the sun; even if the electricity does just flow right through you like they say, a direct hit from that kind of energy should sublimate away most of the water in your body, if not reduce you to ash. People who report surviving lightning bolts are merely grazed in passing by the electrical field. The miracle is that this guy was lucky enough to be one of those people.
Also, note the case of St. Artemius, who was struck dead by lightning at the age of twelve, and whose body was later found incorrupt and possessed of healing powers. Not to mention the whole martyrs' crown. This is mostly a quirky coincidence, and in a religious sense could mean anything. |
that's what I always thought. Lightning gets like 12,000 degrees. That would burn all your flesh off I would think
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Kuciwalker
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of Schmooism
Feb 2001
time: 00:31
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quote:
Originally posted by Elok
Mmm-hmm. And how exactly DOES one survive a direct hit from that kind of energy? Forget the electricity itself. The usual story is that the current merely flows through you rather than wasting its time actually damaging you, and therefore most "lightning survivors" show signs of electrical damage in a feathery pattern along their skin. However, this damage is from electrical discharge emitted from the general area where lightning strikes. The bolt itself, like anything containing that much energy, emits an impressive amount of waste heat.
Are you suggesting that several decades of research were required to make computers like the one you're sitting at that don't melt from their own byproducts, from a relatively modest power flow, whereas a channel of energy potent enough to power a small city for half a year is conducted by plain air, and a human body, at almost perfect efficiency? Honestly...
People who are actually struck by lightning die. Survivors just catch a few traces of peripheral discharge. Common sense ought to tell you that. |
Wrong. What you are talking about is a phenomenon where sometimes the lightning just plays over your body, running a tiny distance over the surface of your skin. The reason the heat doesn't get you is because a) the heat is local; there isn't actually that much of it, it's just concentrated, and b) The heat is only generated when the electricity travels through the air, which doesn't conduct electricity well. When the lightning goes through your body, there is much less resistance, so much less heat generated.
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Elok
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Land of Ramen Dragons
Mar 2003
time: 00:31
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I said we should drop it, but if you insist:
The air is a poor conductor, and therefore generates waste heat, true; however,
A. The human body conducts because of its high content of salt and water, which is still nowhere near as good as metal, and even metal generates waste heat from a suitably large source of power. Mercator's link claims that most of lightning's energy is burned away by its travel through inefficient air (thunder, light, waste heat), but the figure they claim for the actual power of the entire bolt on that page is absurd-just enough to power a light bulb for a few months or some crap like that.
B. The air ends precisely one inch or so above the point where the human begins, and nobody argues that the waste heat generated by that air is ENORMOUS. Except Skywalker, who says it's just really heavily concentrated. Of course, a class four laser is just "heavily concentrated," otherwise harmless light, and it can dice you up like a salami, but...
Note also that the human body is stuffed full of convenient channels designed to conduct electrical energy far better than the surface skin ever could. They're called nerves. They're found most plentifully in a straight line down the center of the body, whereas the surface skin is by comparison no more attractive than wet cork. The lightning has no reason to aim for the body and then channel itself through the skin. Those clothes you talk about it preferring instead-cotton? Polyester? Why would electricity flow through those rather than flesh? I read the arguments but they make no sense.
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Kuciwalker
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of Schmooism
Feb 2001
time: 00:31
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quote:
Of course, a class four laser is just "heavily concentrated," otherwise harmless light, and it can dice you up like a salami, but... |
Two things: first, your analogy is completely off, because the laser doesn't interact with the air (except to an extremely small extent). Second, it supports my case. The spot the laser shines on is heated up, but the surrounding region is not significantly affected.
quote:
Note also that the human body is stuffed full of convenient channels designed to conduct electrical energy far better than the surface skin ever could. They're called nerves. They're found most plentifully in a straight line down the center of the body, whereas the surface skin is by comparison no more attractive than wet cork. The lightning has no reason to aim for the body and then channel itself through the skin. Those clothes you talk about it preferring instead-cotton? Polyester? Why would electricity flow through those rather than flesh? I read the arguments but they make no sense.Note also that the human body is stuffed full of convenient channels designed to conduct electrical energy far better than the surface skin ever could. They're called nerves. They're found most plentifully in a straight line down the center of the body, whereas the surface skin is by comparison no more attractive than wet cork. The lightning has no reason to aim for the body and then channel itself through the skin. Those clothes you talk about it preferring instead-cotton? Polyester? Why would electricity flow through those rather than flesh? I read the arguments but they make no sense. |
The lightning travels just OVER the skin. I've actually even seen an example of this in a Discover magazine article (one of the "Vital Signs" things).
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25-10-2003 01:15
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