| Show energy of lightning by human measurement if benjamin franklin hail had never done anything else lie he would have immortalized immortalize his anine by byhrs his famous kite experiment of july 4 1 1752 by which he showed that lightning Is electrical in character at that time electricity was known only in its static form it being 41 years later when electric current was first produced from batteries and 79 years later when the principles underlying the production of currents from inductive mechanism were experimentally demonstrated during its brief duration a lightning stroke develops enormous power the potential of a typical stroke may he be volts and the current amperes corresponding to perhaps horse power if the duration of the surge Is 50 microseconds this would mean some kwh ewh or of energy these figures are very rough and intended merely to indicate the order of magnitude fortunately an object struck by lightning receives only a small percentage of the total energy of the stroke most of the energy being dissipated in other parts of the lightning path the area affected by a single lightning stroke or by a single ramification fi in case of it a branched stroke is not large inductive effects at distances of feet or more from the lightning channel are seldom severe enough to cause damage sometimes however over edgy or other high resistance si formations formation lightning lightn ing will plow along the surface of the ground for a considerable distance before the charges ire are dissipated lissi dell bell telephone quarterly |
