The hypothesis that the ball lightning appears because of the air bubble acting as a lens

The phenomenon of ball lightning has received a new explanation of their origin. Contribution to the scientific hypothesis was made by Russian scientist Vladimir torchigin keywords, writes Optik.

Ball lightning so far there are several possible explanations, but scientists are still not established, as it appears this mysterious natural phenomenon. One of the strange hypotheses argues that these glowing orbs are the light, caught in a sphere of air. New studies have found physical parameters that can be like this "bubble".

For many centuries people have watched appear and disappear in fireballs. Around it always looks the same — balls of light the size of a grape slowly move a short distance above the ground, often during thunderstorms, keeping the size and shape of might for 10 seconds or so before just disappear. Sometimes people see how ball lightning penetrate through closed window or disappear abruptly in the wall, leaving the smell of sulfur.

More than ten years ago, Vladimir torchigin keywords of Russian Academy of Sciences came to the conclusion that the atmospheric phenomenon, which we call ball lightning, not the lightning, but rather the photons that are fighting the rebound of the walls of the air bubble of their own production.

A few years ago, the appearance of ball lightning in China was accidentally recorded on the spectrograph after a lightning strike on the ground, which gave the researchers the decomposition of the electromagnetic spectrum, including supporting the theory Torchigin.

The study is supported by the explanation of the engineer Canterbury University John Abrahamson, who suggested that fluorescent air can be a result of the fact that the vaporized material of the earth is pushed by the shock wave of air.

Other researchers suggest that clouds of negative ion charge, going on an insulator such as a glass sheet, provide the basis for long periods, and drifting and "Bouncing" motion of ball lightning.

The idea Torchigin simple and speculative. It has nothing to do with ions, and all that is associated with an intense flux of photons emitted by a bright flash in our atmosphere. Since any particle absorbs and emits electromagnetic radiation, there is a return, called the power of the Abraham — Lorentz. In theory, the light propagating from the lightning makes the air particles to vibrate when they absorb and transmit electromagnetic radiation.

This force is not so impressive in most cases. But the extraordinary intensity of the lightning strike is not a normal flash. Moreover, these optical forces can potentially significantly increase under the right conditions. These "right conditions", according to Torchigin include the creation of a thin layer of air which refracts light back onto itself. A thin layer of air, not unlike the film bubble, can effectively focus light like a lens, amplifying it enough to push the air particles in the boundary and create a long-lived bubble, concentrating the photons for a few seconds at a time. But not all of the "germ" ball lightning become a full-fledged lightning, disappearing in an instant due to lack of sunlight or enough of the closed shell.

Translated by «Yandex.Translator»