RSS said:
eh... nahhhhh....
So, what about lightning and the speed of light? Why can we see lightning "strike" across the clouds, yet light itself moves so fast that we never see moving light beams? Why can we sometimes see sparks jump from object to object? This is because the growing motion of lightning and sparks is actually the growth of plasma filaments. It is not a movement of light. Lightning can "strike" slow or fast depending on how fast the plasma filament tips are extending themselves. In very large Tesla Coil systems, the giant sparks can lengthen VERY slowly, a human can sometimes outrun them.
http://www.amasci.com/tesla/spark.html
Actually, someone asked this question of our
web site a while ago and the answer is posted.
However, the speed is normally no more than half
the speed of light, usually substantially less.
According to the book, "It's Raining Frogs and Fishes,"
by Jerry Dennis, lightning bolts travel at speeds up
to 93,000 miles per second. That's pretty darn fast.
What we see as a single lightning flash is actually
several lightning bolts that follow each other so rapidly
that our eyes see only a single flash.
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/gen99/gen99096.htm
The process that creates a lightning stroke is
not light transfer, but is the transfer of
electrical energy (charge) through
the air. Much like an electrical cable, the air,
even though it is ionized, has some resistance
to charge transfer. The speed of the stroke is
impeded by having to transfer the energy from
molecule to molecule along the way, in the process
literally exploding the molecules into atoms.
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/wea00/wea00189.htm
So lightning isnt light, its the movement of electrical charge creating plasma, no more than half light-speed and usually quite a bit slower.
